CISF staff gang up, ‘rob’ house: Group ‘raids' Chinar Park home posing as IT officials, 8 arrested
Telegraph | 27 March 2025
Five CISF personnel, among them a senior inspector and a woman constable earlier posted at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, have been arrested for allegedly posing as Income Tax officials and “raiding” a house at Chinar Park and robbing the family of jewellery and ₹3 lakh.
Apart from the CISF personnel, three others have also been arrested.
According to police, the stepmother of the complainant is the mastermind behind the crime.
She allegedly engaged a relative who is a head constable in the CISF for the crime. The head constable assembled a team comprising a senior inspector and three other constables to carry out the operation, said the police.
All five CISF personnel were arrested on Tuesday and produced in court on Wednesday.
Sources in the court identified the accused as inspector Amit Kumar Singh, who is posted at Farakka Barrage; constable Lakshmi Kumari Chowdhury, who had been posted at the RG Kar CISF unit for four months and is now at the Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port, Calcutta; constable Bimal Thapa, who is posted at the Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Limited; head constable Ramu Saroj, posted at the Durgapur Thermal Power Station; and constable Janardhan Sau, also posted at the Durgapur Thermal Power Station.
All five have been sent to judicial custody. The police said they would conduct a test identification parade of the accused in jail.
Sources in the CISF said all five have been suspended and a departmental inquiry has been initiated against them.
The police said the robbery was reported on March 18. After scanning CCTV footage from the area, officers found the registration number of the vehicle used by the “IT officials” to reach the house in Chinar Park.
According to the complaint lodged by Vinita Singh, a resident of 216 Chinar Park, the “IT officials” knocked on her door at 2am on March 18 and robbed them of ₹3 lakh and valuables on the pretext of making seizures as part of an IT raid.
Vinita had alleged that a group of eight men and women entered her home. Among them, two were wearing police-like uniforms, while the others were in plainclothes, she said.
The group also took the DVR (device to process and store data) of the CCTV cameras installed in their building.
Vinita realised that she had been duped after the gang left.
“The complainant went to the IT department and found no such raid had been conducted at Chinar Park. She then went to Baguiati police station and reported the crime,” said Aishwarya Sagar, deputy commissioner (airport division) of the Bidhannagar commissionerate.
The head constable arrested in the crime is a relative of the complainant’s stepmother, the police said.
Vinita has named her stepmother, Arati Singh, as the suspected mastermind in her complaint.
“They (the accused) came in two vehicles — a car and a two-wheeler. The car was identified after scanning the CCTV footage. Its driver was arrested. Based on his statements, the middleman who hired him was arrested in New Alipore. From the middleman, we learned that an inspector of the CISF had instructed him to hire the car. We arrested this inspector from Farakka,” deputy commissioner Sagar said.
She said all five CISF personnel who were arrested are serving officials.
The police said Vinita had a property dispute with her stepmother. “Arati had struck a deal with the CISF officials that the amount they robbed from the house would be shared 50-50 between them and her,” Sagar said.
A total of eight persons have been arrested so far — the five CISF personnel, driver Shiv Mangal Gond, middleman Dipak Rana and Arati.
They have been charged under sections of impersonation, cheating, criminal breach of trust, forgery, theft and criminal conspiracy, the police said.