Youth behind bars to shield employer’s son

Darpan Singh
Patna, September 5
FIFTY-YEAR-old Radhika Devi is a distraught woman these days. Her son, Sanjay Rajbhar, is in jail since December 2006 for a crime that he never committed — a fact even the top police officials in the district admit. Yet, there is no hope of his release from prison in the near future even as the real culprit remains at large. Cops investigating the case keep assuring her that her son, a resident of Lala Toli under Dumraon police station of Buxar district, would be set free as soon as the real culprit was arrested.He was sent to jail to save the skin of his master’s son wanted in connection with a case of abduction and sodomy. Radhika told HT on Wednesday, “We are suffering because we are poor. My son was forced to identify himself as someone else on the pretext that he would soon be freed.” Police sources said in August 2002, an FIR (case No. 213/2002) was lodged with Buxar Town police station charging Om Prakash Tiwary alias Munna Tiwary (of village Kopwan under Koran Sarai PS of the district) with abducting and sodomising Dilip Yadav (14) in Buxar town. The victim belonged to village Neura Dera under Bihta police station of Patna district. However, Munna, son of Rameshwar Nath Tiwary, a government employee posted at Ara, could never be arrested, even as the Patna High Court rejected his anticipatory bail application. According to police, when Rameshwar, who has a house in Dumraon also, could not find a way to save his son after a local court issued property attachment orders against him in this connection, he decided to ‘use’ one of his employees, Sanjay. He asked him to surrender and go to jail impersonating Munna, promising that he would soon bail him out as his son had committed only a minor crime. Rameshwar allegedly told Sanjay’s family that he was sending him to Bhagalpur to work in a factory. When Sanjay’s family was informed by a youth that he was in Buxar Central Jail, as told by a prisoner who had just been released on bail, they approached Rameshwar. He again fooled them by saying that Sanjay was in jail in connection with a minor skirmish and he would soon bail him out. Sanjay’s father Rambadan Rajbhar said, “Rameshwar also threatened us with dire consequences if we made any hue and cry.”Suspecting foul play, they went to the jail where Sanjay met them as Munna Tiwary. When his parents failed to secure his bail, they approached the district judge here submitting that Sanjay had been made accused, chargesheeted and jailed for a crime committed by Munna. The court took cognizance and asked the Buxar cops to probe the matter and submit a report. The police, in the inquiry report submitted some six months back, admitted the lapse. In the meantime, the harried family members were summoned to court several times. A senior lawyer of the district, Prabha Tiwary, said it was not a case of mistaken identity but showed how a poor youth could be victimised. He said it was very surprising how Sanjay was arrested and kept in jail without proper verification of his identity and termed it as gross violation of human rights. Now, Sanjay’s mother and other family members have again been asked to appear in the district and sessions court here. Though Buxar SP Paresh Saxena expressed ignorance about any such case saying he was in Delhi and could confirm it only after his return, Town SHO A.B. Sahay said the court had been informed that Sanjay was innocent. He said the police were waiting for fresh court orders to arrest the real accused. He, however, failed to give any satisfactory reply as to why Sanjay was not being released once his innocence had been established.