Lucknow, Jan 10: The suspension of SSP Gautam Buddha Nagar Vaibhav Krishna on Thursday evening by the Yogi Adityanath government has deepened fissures in the state’s IPS cadre.
According to sources, an ADG rank officer has reportedly written a letter to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, asking him to take action against corrupt officer and investigate charges against them.
The ADG, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that in Vaibhav Krishna’s case it was the whistleblower who had been penalized instead of those accused of corruption.
“The viral video issue is just an excuse to suspend Vaibhav Krishna. The real reason is the powerful lobby of IPS officers who do not want any investigation in corruption matters. The three-member committee set up to probe charges against five IPS officers, named by Vaibhav Krishna, who have been accused of having a nexus with journalists on corruption issues is just an eye wash,” he said.
He cited the example of another senior IPS officer who has spent a large part of his career in suspension and said that if the officer was so inefficient, he should have been terminated instead of remaining suspended.
Vaibhav Krishna was suspended after a forensic lab in Gujarat confirmed the authenticity of the video chat with a woman that had gone viral on the social media a few days ago.
Krishna had termed the viral video as fake but the forensic report says that “No sign of edit, alteration, medication, morphing was observed in this video.”
Vaibhav Krishna had himself lodged an FIR in the case of the viral video.
Vaibhav Krishna also reportedly leaked a confidential letter that he had written to the state government accusing five officers of conniving with certain builders, extortionists and local journalists to ensure “transfers and postings” in exchange for money.
UP DGP O P Singh had said last week that this amounted to a violation of service rules.
Krishna, a 2000 batch IPS officer, had accused an ASP-rank officer, a Provincial Civil Services (PCS) officer, four inspectors, a sub-inspector and three constables in his letter of extending favours to these middlemen.
He had also provided UP DGP O.P. Singh with video recordings and clips in support of his allegations. An investigation into his allegations is being conducted by IG, Meerut, Alok Singh.
The IPS officer had claimed that the “morphed” video was leaked to tarnish his image.
He also alleged that he was being targeted because he had begun a probe to expose the nexus between the IPS officers, journalists and builders.
Meanwhile, the state government transferred 13 IPS officers including the police chiefs of Banda, Sultanpur, Rampur and Ghaziabad who had been accused of corruption by Vaibhav Krishna. All these officers have been given non-district postings.
These officers include Ajay Pal Sharma (Rampur), Sudhir Singh (Ghaziabad) , Ganesh Prasad Saha (Banda), Himanshu (Sultanpur) and Rajiv Narain Misra, who was posted as SP STF in Lucknow.
