Ex-JK DGP to probe CRPF IG who reported fake encounter in Assam

Former Director General of Jammu and Kashmir Police Ashok Prasad may travel to Assam to probe the conduct of a CRPF inspector general (IG), who has lodged a complaint about an alleged fake encounter there.

Senior IPS officer Rajnish Rai had sent a report to the paramilitary force headquarters and others in April, alleging that two men had been killed in the alleged staged encounter in March in Assam’s Chirang district. The officer was then in charge of the Northeast sector of the paramilitary force.

Prasad, currently a technical advisor to the Union home ministry, will inquire whether the conduct of the officer was within the parameters of the rules as he has conducted a “discreet” inquiry on his own and whether or not he exceeded his jurisdiction by preparing the report.

“My mandate is only to find out whether the conduct of the officer is as per rules. The state government has already ordered a magisterial inquiry into the allegation of the fake encounter,” he told reporters in New Delhi.

Prasad, also a spokesperson of the home ministry, said, if required, he would travel to Assam and may question the officer and record his statement.

Rai, in his report, had alleged that the encounter carried by a joint squad of security forces in Assam in March was fake and it killed two persons in cold blood claiming they were NDFB rebels.

Rai, a 1992-batch IPS officer of Gujarat cadre, said he had conducted a “discreet” inquiry on his own chronicling how a team of the Assam Police, the Army, the CRPF, its jungle warfare unit CoBRA and the border guarding force Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) conducted the encounter on March 29-30 in Simlaguri area of Chirang district and killed what they called were two insurgents of the banned group NDFB (S).

Rai has subsequently been transferred to Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh.