ELECTED representatives of Rajasthan’s Bhilwara, including BJP MP Subhash Baheria, MLA V. S. Avasthi and municipal chairman Anil Baldawa, became law unto themselves and forced the Mandal town police to release an accused from the police station at around 2 am on Friday.
An “ embarrassed” Bhilwara’s superintendent of police HGR Suhasaa told M AIL T ODAY that accused Poonam Bapna, a property dealer, was detained for interrogation and was to be arrested in a land fraud case. “ I was out of Bhilwara due to some official work and came to know about the incident only after my return,” he said, calling the incident both “ surprising and embarrassing”. Following a complaint by a woman, the police of Mandal town, 18 km from district headquarters of Bhilwara, had taken Bapna into custody at around 6pm on Thursday and brought him to the police station for interrogation. The complainant Nandu Devi had accused Bapna of forcibly taking away some documents related to plots and blank stamp papers from her house and of transferring the property in his name.
At around midnight Baheria, Avasthi and Baldawa, joined by few supporters, reached the police station and following a heated discussion for over twoand- a- half hours with Station House Officer ( SHO) and Deputy Superintendent of police, took away Bapna saying that he was an innocent BJP worker.
SHO of Mandal police station Mahendra Meghvanshi said that Bapna was allowed to go following the instructions from DSP. DSP Puran Singh, on his part, said though the accused deserved to be arrested but Baheria and Avasthi insisted that they were taking Bapna along as he had to go to Mumbai for his son’s admission. They verbally assured him that Bapna would surrender to the police later.
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