Bhubaneswar: Three persons have been booked on charges of circulating fake and misleading information about security cover provided to BJD leader and Nabin Odisha chairman VK Pandian.
A case has been registered against Prakash Das, Srikant Pakal and Pradip Pradhan of Odisha Soochana Adhikar Abhijan (OSAA), a forum for state’s RTI activists, at Saheed Nagar police under under IPC sections, including those of cheating and forgery, as well as the Information Technology Act on the basis of a complaint by our reserve inspector, Bhubaneswar DCP Prateek Singh said.
This came days after BJP moved poll authorities, seeking withdrawal of “unnecessary security benefits” given to Pandian, while claiming that his squad of 74 personnel outstripped even Z+ cover of 55 guards.
The trio had shared the information at a press conference on March 29, citing a undated letter received from the Commissionerate Police.
Following a controversy over allegations regarding the deployment of 74 police personnel for the security of 5T Chairman VK Pandian, Twin City Police Commissioner Sanjeeb Panda on Wednesday issued a statement and termed the RTI letter to be fake.
“We have not issued any document. We registered a case yesterday and the investigation has started. We have not issued the letter as shown in the press meet by the RTI activist,” said Twin City Police Commissioner Sanjeeb Panda.
OSSA then had claimed that the document was handed over by the Reserve Police office. Responding to the development, RTI activist Prakash Das said that a forensic examination of the letter should be conducted to ascertain its authenticity.
“We presented the information which we got from Reserve Police. When the news was published, neither VK Pandian, BJD nor the police came up with any statement or clarification. After some days, FIR has now been registered. If they (Police) are saying that it is fake, then the police need to clarify whether the signature is true or false and check the CCTV footage whether I had collected the information from the police station. A forensic examination of the letter should be conducted,” said Das.