STAFF REPORTER
GUWAHATI: And now the CID has arrested former Bajali SP Shiddhartha Buragohain and DSP Pushkal Gogoi in the police extortion case in the Bajali district. With these arrests, the CID has arrested nine people in the case.
The Home Department transferred and attached SP Shiddhartha Buragohain to Assam Police headquarters on September 1, 2023, soon after the Bajali extortion case came to light.
According to sources, on the night of July 16 this year, Bajali police took Rabiul Islam to Bhabanipur Police Station and to the official residence of SP Buragohain the next day. The police beat up Islam at the residence of the SP on the charge of owning property disproportionate to his known sources of income. From the SP’s residence, the then-ASP Gayatri Sonowal took Rabiul somewhere else. She too made police personnel beat up Rabiul in the name of interrogation. The police then took Rabiul back to the Bhabanipur Police Station, where DSP Pushkal Gogoi beat him up. The police then created the situation of an encounter by taking Rabiul to Kohra and making him flee the scene. If not anything, the police gave Rabiul the impression that they would shoot him down anytime if he did not cooperate with them. At the very moment, a middleman went near Rabiul and told him sotto voce that the police would frame him in another case if he did not pay them Rs 2.50 crore and Rs 10 lakh in advance. Without registering any case against him, the police took him to several places on July 17 and let him go on July 18, but not before taking as many as 21 signed blank cheques from his family members, sources said. Rabiul then transferred the money to some other banks. The police did ask Rabiul to report to Bhawanipur Police Station on July 19, but he did not turn up.
During that period, Kishor Baruah played the role of a middleman between the then-ASP Gayatri Sonowal and Rabiul’s family members. Sonowal then called Rabiul to her residence on July 30 to take the articles seized from him with a payment of Rs 5 lakh. In the meantime, the two arrested home guards informed the family members of Rabiul not to communicate with then-ASP Gayatri Sonowal as she was transferred. The duo asked Rabiul’s family members to pay the amount to the SP, the sources added.
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