Who Is Ashish Joshi And What Is The Controversy Around Delhi Police Special Cell Questioning The Former Dot Bureaucrat?

(MENAFN- Live Mint) Former senior bureaucrat Ashish Joshi has alleged that he was questioned by the Delhi Police Special Cell for nearly nine hours on Wednesday after being picked up while he was on a morning walk. The matter came to light on Wednesday evening with Joshi's post on X reading“Just got back home. Delhi Special Cell dropped me home. Details later.”

In a subsequent post addressed to Delhi Police Commissioner Anurag Kumar, in the early hours of Thursday, Joshi reminded the top cop that it was a legal mandate to inform an individual's family during interrogation or detention.

What Ashish Joshi said

“​Yesterday, I was taken for interrogation after my morning walk under the assurance that it would take very little time. However, as the hours stretched on, my repeated requests to inform my wife of my whereabouts, the concerned Police Officials/Officer simply stated they were "following instructions,” Joshi said in the post on X.

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According to Joshi, he was only permitted to make a call to his panicked family at 6:38 PM.

“I request that you issue clear instructions to all units directing officers to strictly uphold the legal duty of immediately informing the family of any person taken for interrogation, so that no citizen's family has to endure the distress that mine suffered,” he said further.

Who is Ashish Joshi?

Joshi is a former controller of communications in the Department of Telecommunications. According to Joshi's LinkedIn profile, he holds a Master of Management Studies (Public Policy) from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore and has held several key positions in the DoT in his bureaucratic career. A 1992-batch Indian Post and Telecommunication Accounts and Finance Service officer, Joshi was posted as DoT Controller of Communications in Uttarakhand. According to Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit, Joshi retired as an Additional Secretary to the Government of India.

What Delhi Police said

While the Delhi Police is yet to make any public comments about the developments, PTI, citing sources, reported that the former bureaucrat was questioned by the Special Cell in connection with an old case for nearly nine hours, and he was later allowed to leave.

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Joshi was questioned by the Counter Intelligence unit of the Special Cell at its office in New Friends Colony, Delhi Police sources cited by PTI said, adding that he was released in the evening after his statement was recorded and no arrest was made.

The source also contradicted Joshi's claim and said that the former bureaucrat and his family were duly informed about the case when he was brought in for questioning.

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