Taking cognizance of the death of a tribal police officer in Topchachi Police Station in Dhanbad, the Bharatiya Suraaj Dal constituted a high level team to investigate the case.

The team was led by PK Siddharth, a former IPS officer, who is currently the President of a body called Bharatiya Suraj Dal.

As per a report prepared by Sidharth,the team went to Dhanbad,heard the version of the senior police officers like the SSP and the SP Rural, met and spoke to the doctors who conducted the post mortem on the dead body of the deceased officer, visited the Topchachi Police Station and spoke to the local journalists and people as also the staff of the police station, and inspected the place of occurrence.

After due enquiry, the team came to the following conclusions:

1) The version of the police that the door of the room of the deceased police officer was broken open after he was sighted through the window hanging from the ceiling is absolutely incorrect, as the inner latch of the door is absolutely intact. There is not the slightest damage to the bolting mechanism. (Photo Enclosed)

2) The photographs taken clearly shows that the feet of the deceased officer are firmly planted on the wooden bed (chowki) and the knees are slightly bent indicating that there was no pressure on the neck to create asphyxia to cause death.

3) The Inquest report prepared by the SDM on the state of the body of the deceased officer does not match with the post-mortem report. The two should actually match and point in the same direction. But it is not so in this case. The usual signs of asphyxia from hanging are protrusion of the tongue which is found pressed between the teeth, bulging of the eyeballs with eyes open, urination, defecation and semen, coming out, saliva coming out of mouth, etc. None of these marks are mentioned in the Inquest Report which only mentions slight protrusion of the tongue, which is not clearly seen in the photo of the hanging body. The medical report says that stains of semen were found on the tip of the penis of the deceased and the underwear. The underwear is not available. According to the PM Report, there was a dried line of saliva on the chest of the deceased which is not mentioned in the inquest. There is a strong possibility that the post mortem repost has been submitted under political or administrative pressure, which is very common today.

4) It is said that the deceased officer was tense due to the show cause served on him by the SSP. The SSP says that show cause was served on all the four officers who were learnt to be a part of the four-member raiding party. Being served with show cause notice is a routine affair in a subordinate policeman’s life, and it by itself cannot cause suicide. There must be enough circumstances to justify the suicide theory, which are not to be found in this case. Surely, the deceased officer was made by the DSP to register a false case, but for that he was not responsible as the complaint was signed by the OC PS Hariharpur Sri Santosh Rajak. The seizure list was also made and signed by Santosh Rajak. Therefore, Sri Kachchap was not responsible for any of these. He was only to investigate the case. That investigation was also taken away from him and given to an officer of a police station who was not under the DSP Sri Huda. So the tension of submitting a false investigation report was also not there on his mind. Therefore, in sum, there was no apparent reason to drive him to commit suicide due to unbearable tension.

5) DSP Huda is an ill-reputed officer. So is SI Santosh Rajak, who has even faced charges of murdering a colleague ASI at Rajganj Police Station where he was posted earlier. In that case also he was shielded and nothing has happened to him, emboldening him further to possibly murder other colleagues without fear of attracting punishment.

Both these officers are widely seen as acting in collusion with each other in regularly collecting huge money from cattle smugglers. The sequence and nature of events mentioned by SI Santosh Rajak in his written complaint is false. He has alleged in his complaint that the cattle smuggler, who was shot, had a 9 mm pistol without valid papers. But in the seizure list there is mention of a local country made pistol. Both these documents have been signed by SI Rajk himself. Perhaps he was under impression that he would be able to manage a 9mm pistol for planting, but could not succeed. So he is caught on record lying about the incident. One way to wriggle out of the situation was to change the FIR, which could be done only with the consent of the Officer In Charge Sri Kachchap. Sri Kachchap being a law-fearing officer would not have agreed to it. DSP Huda and Rajak showed him on record to be a part of the raiding party just to ensure that Sri Kachchap, being a part of the raiding party, would justify the incident of firing at the cattle smuggler, but when the investigation of the case was taken away from Sri Kachhap, the game was foiled. In addition, it made Sri Kachhap a compulsory witness of the incident of firing, and there was a danger that he would speak the truth as a witness thus putting the noose virtually in the neck of SI Rajak who had unlawfully fired at the cattle smuggler allegedly for his not agreeing to pay the money to the officers. To end this dreaded possibility, the only way was to physically eliminate Kachchap from the scene. It may be recalled that Rajak has murderous instincts and he is already charged with the murder of an ASI colleague during his earlier posting.

From the circumstances it appears that on the night of the incident, Rajak or someone on his behalf knocked at the door of Sri Kahchap, woke him up in the middle of the night, and negotiated with him the manipulation of documents and tried to persuade him to make false statements to the investigating Officer and other higher authorities, which perhaps Sri Kachchap declined. On this refusal, he was overpowered and perhaps killed by suffocating him with a pillow. Then, to cover up the incident, the belt of the bedding was tied to his neck, his body was made to stand on the wooden bed (chowky) and the other end of the bedding belt was tied to the ceiling hook. It must have taken at least two people to make the body stand, keep it erect and to then tie it to the ceiling hook to give an impression of suicide. The criminals could not succeed, though, in giving a real impression because they could not manage to lift the body enough to really ‘hang’ it from the ceiling, as the deceased officer’s feet remained fully planted on the wooden bed. Surely this must have taken more than one person to lift and make the body stand erect.

question is how all this could happen without the knowledge of at least some of the police station staff who were on duty on that night, especially the Munshi and the sentry. The version of the Munshi that after the body of the officer was seen through the window by him hanging, the door of his room was broken open. This story is absolutely false because the inner bolting mechanism of the door was found fully intact after the incident. At east someone in the police station must have come to the room of Sri Kachchap and knocked at the door. Sri Kachchap must have opened the door and allowed entry. When Sri Kachchap was murdered he could not obviously bolt the door from inside nor could it have been possible for the person going out to bolt the door from inside. So the door remained just shut without being bolted from inside. The version of the Munshi that it was broken open by kicking thrice from outside is completely false. The Munshi himself appears to be either involved in the murder or in helping the murderer in erecting the dead body, or is in know of the things, but is creating a false story. Under whose pressure or fear did he get involved in the act, or is creating a false story? Was he under the pressure or fear of DSP Huda or the political godfather of DSP Huda? As the story goes, there is a political figure who is known as the ‘Prime Minister of Bagmara’, without whose consent no officer can be transferred or posted in the Bagmara area. It is he who got DSP Huda posted as DSP Bagmara, and Rajak as OC Hariharpur in spite of the fact that Rajak was accused of murdering a colleague ASI in a neighboring police station. These two offices are known to be working under the command of the ‘Prime Minster of Bagmara’ who has often been in the news for his criminal acts. He is sure to provide protection to the two culprit pet officers, being connected to the ruling party of the state. To divert the attention from him the government has separated the SSP from the investigation of the case, and closed the two officers to the headquarters, without even suspending them. All this is the route administrative and political drama we keep witnessing day in and day out, and we know ultimately nothing concrete is going to be done to the culprits with political protection.

The firing took place in Rajganj area, but Sri Kachchap was pressurized by the DSP to register the FIR in the Topchachi police station. Sri Kachchap was a tribal officer because of which he succumbed to the pressure. A shrewd non-tribal officer would not have agreed to such pressure. His tribal goodness and simplicity were exploited by DSP Huda who made him a victim of a sinister conspiracy. This makes the incident truly grave in a tribal state.

The investigation reveals that the smuggling of cows and buffaloes to west Bengal and Bangladesh for cow slaughter is still continuing in full form in spite of the BJP government being in saddle in the state, because huge unlawful money can be earned from such smuggling by the officers, and through them, the political representatives, which in this case is a political local bigwig. Cows are not only being smuggled via Jharkhand, but are also being slaughtered in Jharkhand in large numbers which is evident from beef being the most cheaply available meat in Jharkhand. This is the same BJP whose national leader Sri Modi was blaming the Congress party for ‘pink revolution’ before the last parliamentary elections. The BJP has drawn immense electoral benefits from this issue arousing Hindu emotions, but now is continuing the pink revolution started by the Congress.


1) Because in the murder of the OC Topchhachi the role of the police officers is clear, and the protection being provided to these culprit officers by the local BJP MLA Dullu Mahto is also clear after he held a press conference to declare that he stood by these two ‘good’ officers, and will protect them. Therefore, no justice can come to this tribal officer if the case is investigated by the state police. The party demands that the investigation of the case be handed over to the CBI.

2) Law should be modified to allow for two post-mortem examinations of the same dead body – one by the government medial officers and another by a private hospital of the victim’s family’s choice so that the practice or perception of medial officers submitting ‘coloured’ post-mortem report under political or administrative pressure to shield powerful culprits abates. Such a law is already in vogue in Britain and other advanced countries. A state amendment to the statute may serve the purpose as far as Jharkhand is concerned. The party plans to do something about it in the monsoon session of the State Assembly.

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