Abbas Ansari-wife jail meetings: Suspended officials grilled

LUCKNOW: Chitrakoot Police are interrogating suspended jail superintendent Ashok Sagar and suspended jailer Santosh Kumar Singh. Senior police officials, however, denied having detained or arrested them.
Additional director general of police, Prayagraj zone, Bhanu Bhaskar, who is himself supervising the probe in the incident, said that police were working on exposing the co-conspirators who facilitated SBSP MLA Abbas Ansari, and Nikhat Bano.The conspirators were facilitators of the couple for extraneous reasons of cash, curry, and influence.
"And for the above, co-conspirators were facilitating not only the meeting but were also privy to the designs of influencing and threatening witnesses, prosecutors and police officers. They repeatedly failed in their duties as uniformed officers," ADG said. Chitrakoot police led by Vrinda Shukla is exposing the overt and covert links, reach and designs, he said.
The ADG added that the investigation is being reviewed regularly by senior officers and is "progressing in the right direction, though a lot of work remains to be done". The interview and interrogation of the jail officials will continue alongside others.
Sources privy to the probe added that a hefty bribe was paid to the jail superintendent and jailer for facilitating the meeting and they were also given expensive gifts. "We are verifying bank accounts of the accused jail officials," said an officer.