ASI arrested on bribery charge for trying shield cybercrime accused

Bhopal: Police commissioner Harinarayanchari Mishra on Wednesday suspended four cops — Aishbagh SHO Jitendra Garhwal, ASIs Pawan Raghuvanshi and Manoj Kumar, and head constable Dharmendra Singh — for alleged negligence and misconduct in the investigation of a major cybercrime case.
ASI Raghuvanshi has been arrested and charged under Prevention of Corruption Act for allegedly striking a Rs 25 lakh bribe deal with the mastermind of a fake call centre racket that duped people in the garb of investing in the stock market.
The deal was to shield the racketeer from police action, said officers. Police recovered Rs 5 lakh of the alleged bribe from Raghuvanshi's residence.
The racket was running undetected from a house in Prabhat Square. On Feb 22 this year, three female employees working at the ‘call centre' approached Aishbagh police station, alleging that they were not paid their salaries. When police inspected the premises, they found a 25-SIM box.
Digging deeper, they found that the mobile numbers and bank accounts linked to the call centre were used in cyber-fraud cases in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. Police found it was run by one Afzal Khan.
Police raided the call centre, arrested Afzal's son, and released him. When senior officers intervened, an FIR was registered against Afzal and his daughter, and Afzal was arrested on Monday. Investigations uncovered transactions exceeding Rs 1 crore in various employee bank accounts, leading to the arrest of eight more suspects.
By then, ASI Raghuvanshi had already been removed from active duty and attached to police lines, but he remained ‘unusually active' in the case, raising suspicion among senior officers, particularly ACP Surbhi Meena, said officers.
She asked the crime branch to monitor Raghuvanshi, who was found to be in contact with Aishbagh SHO Jitendra Garhwal, head constable Dharmendra Singh and ASI Manoj Kumar. It was during this surveillance that the alleged real mastermind of the racket, Moeen Khan, was exposed, said police.
Investigations revealed that ASI Raghuvanshi was fully aware that Afzal was merely a frontman, while Moeen — a native of Tikamgarh — was the real mastermind of the cyber-fraud racket, said police. To protect Moeen, Raghuvanshi allegedly struck a Rs 25 lakh deal with Moeen to shield him from being made an accused in the case.
Police traced Moeen's location on Tuesday when he arrived in Bhopal to pay the first instalment of Rs 5 lakh of the alleged bribe. Police then raided ASI Raghuvanshi's house and recovered the alleged bribe.
According to police, ASI Raghuvanshi admitted during interrogation that the Rs 25 lakh deal was struck with the involvement of SHO Garhwal, and that the scheme also involved ASI Manoj Singh and head constable Dharmendra Singh. Following these revelations, ASI Raghuvanshi was arrested, and a case was registered against him under Prevention of Corruption Act.
DCP Priyanka Shukla said Moeen Khan is a key player in cyberfraud operations across multiple states. Police have registered cases in the matter, and further investigations are on.