Blame game begins over probe

TNN / Feb 25, 2006, 00:32 IST

Share

AA

Text Size

Small
Medium
Large

The then police commissioner who took charge a few months after the murder of Jessica Lal, has lobbed the ball into commissioner K K Paul's court.

NEW DELHI: The police chief who didn't act on his joint commissioner's report accusing senior officers of shoddy investigations in the Jessica Lal case on Friday said the author of the report, K K Paul, who is now the commissioner, should take action.
The then police commissioner, Ajai Raj Sharma, who took charge a few months after the murder of Jessica Lal, has lobbed the ball into commissioner K K Paul's court as the blame game begins over the botched-up probe.
"It was his report and he is the commissioner now. It's up to him to implement his suggestion of registering a case against those who tampered with the evidence.
In fact, now is the best time because had we acted on his report earlier, it would have only further weakened the prosecution," said Ajai Raj, adding that he agreed with the findings of Paul.

Ajai Raj's predecessor, V N Singh, who was the commissioner when the incident took place, also denied asking any officer to send the cartridges to the CFSL.
Paul had said in his report the specific question put to the CFSL that whether or not the shots were fired from one gun "indicates doubt in the mind of the investigator even though, according to the investigation and the FIR, only one weapon had been used".
"The empties should not have been sent in the first place. Even if they were sent, the query to the CFSL should have just been whether the injury could have been caused by the lead of the empties seized from the spot because there was no doubt in the case.

The question put by the investigating officers, it now seems, was to facilitate the two-gun theory," said another former commissioner who did not wish to be quoted.
"The investigations were almost over by the time I joined as commissioner. The case file never came to me. But it was indeed strange that the empties were sent to the CFSL when the weapon had not been seized," Ajai Raj said.
He added that he had joined at a stage when crime in Delhi was rising rapidly and it wasn't possible for him to look into the merits of the investigations straightaway.
Meanwhile, commissioner K K Paul said on Friday it was too early to comment on the course of action as they were yet to study the judgment in detail.

End of Article

FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA