JOIN USA suspended IAS officer on parole after his arrest in connection with the Haryana teachers’ recruitment scam, for which former state chief minister Om Prakash Chautala and his son Ajay have been convicted, has been arrested for allegedly planning to murder a friend over a property dispute.
Two contract killers and one murder convict too have been arrested for the murder plot, the police said on Friday. The suspended officer Sanjeev Kumar had apparently befriended the murder convict Shaukat Pasha during their stint together at Tihar Jail. The contract killers had been hired by Pasha from behind the bars using mobile phones.
A 1985 batch IAS officer, Kumar was holding office as the Director of Primary Education in Haryana when his role in the teachers’ recruitment scam had surfaced. Kumar was seen as the whistleblower in the case till his own involvement in the scam came to light.
Kumar had also arranged to injure himself during the attack so the blame would fall on the family of Haryana ex-chief minister Chautala, with whom he was at loggerheads, said the police at a press conference.
The Delhi Police’s Crime Branch had been tipped-off about a murder plot being hatched by Kumar, who was awarded a 10-year sentence in the scam case but was out on parole.
The police arrested one of the suspected contract killers Mohd Taufiq from Nizamuddin area and seized a pistol from him. He allegedly revealed that he was contacted by his associate Pasha from Tihar Jail.
Pasha told him that he had been hired by the officer Kumar who wanted his friend to be killed and himself to be slightly injured in the attack. Taufiq was instructed to rope in his associates Asad and Aftab for the murder.