Revolver as posthumous award for retired police officer in MP

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By Praveen Dwivedi

Bhopal, Dec 19 (IANS) On Friday, the Madhya Pradesh Police was celebrating its Foundation Day with enthusiasm and recalling the sacrifices and achievements of a number of police personnel in their services to the citizens. Among the thousands gathered at the Motilal Nehru Stadium, the wife of a retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer sitting in the guests gallery was eagerly waiting for her turn to come on stage to receive a special award on behalf of her late husband.

The moment for which Jyoti Singh had travelled from Bihar's Samastipur district to Bhopal came and she went on the stage to receive the honour on behalf of her husband for which she had been waiting for the last several years. And this special award was a 'revolver' which she received from Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in the presence of Home Minister Narottam Mishra and Madhya Pradesh Director General of Police Vivek Johari.

The revolver was handed over to Jyoti as a posthumous award for her husband and retired IPS officer of the 1987 batch from the Madhya Pradesh cadre, late Sanjeev Kumar Singh for successfully solving an abduction case in 2004.

The incident for which Sanjeev Kumar Singh was awarded posthumously dates back to 12th January 2004 when a leading industrialist of Satna in Madhya Pradesh, Tirath Prasad Gupta, was abducted from an area under Uchehara police station. This led to panic among the industrialists as the kidnappers demanded a whopping Rs 5 crore for his release.

The then chief minister, Uma Bharti, directed that the case should be handed over to the Special Task Force (STF) as the kidnappers were making calls from different states to confuse the investigating agencies about their location. The caller's location was being traced to Nepal, Eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. During the calls, they demanded the handing over of the ransom money through the hawala route at Dubai and other countries.

Due to this, it was becoming a difficult task for the police to locate the kidnappers and hence the STF was asked to come in.

Sanjeev Kumar Singh was at that time serving as Deputy Inspector General of Police with the Crime Investigation Department (CID) of Madhya Pradesh police. After activating his sources and employing his resources, he received vital inputs that revealed the involvement of hardcore criminals, Anil Singh alias Company Singh and Vikram Singh alias Mangal Singh, in the kidnapping. Their location was traced to Patna, the capital of Bihar.

Interestingly, Singh himself was born in Bihar's Samastipur district. On 29th February 2004, Singh got information that Anil Singh was reaching a specific point in Patna. Singh moved swiftly, arrested Anil Singh and started interrogating him to know the whereabouts of the abducted industrialist.

Based on the tip off provided by Anil Singh, officials and personnel from the STF and the Bihar Police stormed the hideout of the criminals in Aurangabad in Bihar and rescued Tirath Prasad Gupta.

The family members of Gupta later voluntarily handed over a cheque of Rs 10 lakh to the MP Police for the successful operation that Singh had meticulously designed to rescue Gupta.

After receiving the posthumous award (revolver), Singh's wife Jyoti Singh talking to IANS said, 'It is not just a revolver but a dream come true for which we waited for years. As far as I know it has been awarded to him for a remarkable job, especially in the kidnapping case. I really don't know why it took so many years. It would have been better if Sanjeev himself was present to receive it.'

Jyoti told IANS that around six months back she was informed that the Madhya Pradesh government has decided to confer a posthumous award for her husband's remarkable job in police service. 'I can't express my feelings I am going through right now, but yes I am proud of my husband and missing him a lot. I would like to thank DGP Vivek Johri and MP Chief Secretary Iqbal Singh Bains for making Sanjeev's dream come true with this award,' Jyoti added.

On the significance of a revolver as an award, A Sai Manohar, former Additional Director General of Police, MP cadre, told IANS that 'such awards like a revolver or a pistol are given in rare cases for a remarkable job and Sanjeev was one of them. As far as I know only 6-7 MP cadre police officers have been bestowed such an honour.'

'For a police officer a pistol is not just a weapon but a symbol of honour. The police department or the state government confer such an award only on those police officers who have achieved a remarkable task during their service.

A decorated officer, Singh also played a significant role in establishing the country's premier anti-terror agency, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), before he passed away due to Covid-19 complications on October 16, 2020. He had also served as Additional Director General with the Border Security Force.

--IANS

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