Was slain Delhi-based businessman Manoj Vashishth being subjected to police harassment at the behest of retired army officials with whom he was involved in a tussle for a piece of land?
Investigation pertaining to the Sagar Ratna encounter reported from Central Delhi's Rajendra Nagar over the weekend has thrown up the names of two retired Indian Army colonels whom he had accused of implicating him in a slew of criminal cases to gain an upper hand, according to a police source. Their questioning is scheduled over the coming days.
This, even as the Delhi Police vigilance unit questioned a Delhi-based man employed by the slain businessman about the possible identities of policemen who allegedly attempted to extort him in late April.
“We are in the process of verifying whether the personnel accused of extorting him were among the nine special cell operatives who have been transferred after the incident,” confirmed a police officer.
“A driver employed by Vashishth is being taken through a database of all police personnel to ascertain the identities of a group of men, who were allegedly carrying police Ids, before extorting him at Dhaula Kuan,” the officer added.
According to a source, one of the businessman's employees, whose name is deliberately being withheld, had told officials of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed to enquire into the incident about the possibility of him having been 'lured to the restaurant' by people posing as potential business associates.
This, the said employee has told the police, seemed to have been done to 'implicate him in a false case at the behest of the two retired Army colonels he was being harassed by' before the whole episode went horribly wrong.
“According to his employee, he had been implicated by the said Army officials in several false cases so that they could get possession of a plot in South Delhi; this is being verified and investigated,” an officer said.
Meanwhile, officials from the SIT visited the spot where the encounter left the 45-year-old businessman dead last Saturday evening to recreate the scene of the crime; almost simultaneously, senior officials from the police establishment convened a meeting with the special cell's field operatives at the Delhi Police headquarters.
Here, according to a source, the latter were asked to 'take due care to ensure that a similar incident wasn't allowed to dent the credibility of the special cell in future'. Further investigation in the case is underway by way of four separate enquiries into it.
