The Hindu : National : Telgi case: Inspector refuses to give voice samples

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 06, 2004

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National

Telgi case: Inspector refuses to give voice samples

By Devesh K. Pandey

NEW DELHI, APRIL 5. Inspector Puran Singh, who was arrested for his alleged links with Abdul Karim Telgi, prime accused in the multi-crore fake stamp papers scam, has refused to give voice samples to the Central Bureau of Investigation. The CBI wanted the samples for matching them with Puran Singh's purported conversations with Telgi and his contacts, which were intercepted by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Delhi police last year.

According to sources, while probing Puran Singh's suspected links with Telgi, the EOW questioned him on several occasions to get pertinent clues. He maintained that Telgi was merely his source and he had been helping him unearth the fake stamp paper racket "which was in the country's interest."

By then, the EOW had gathered evidence confirming that he had a certain role in the racket. Hence, the police secured permission from the authorities concerned to intercept and record his conversations on his mobile phone. It was after another round of questioning by the EOW sleuths in 2003 that Puran Singh, who had introduced himself to Telgi as a Crime Branch officer, came out and immediately contacted him on his mobile phone. During the conversation, Puran Singh allegedly told Telgi that things were getting worse as the Crime Branch were now after him. Saying that the EOW had started suspecting his involvement in the racket, Puran Singh allegedly told Telgi that he would not be able to go to Mumbai to meet him. He also asked Telgi to send money through his lawyer, Abdul Rashid Kulkarni, to set things right. Telgi then told him that no matter what transpired, his name should not come up in the investigations.

In due course, the police intercepted more conversations between Puran Singh and Telgi which confirmed that he knew Telgi very well. They also concluded that in the name of appeasing the investigators by offering them money, he was, in fact, extracting more money from Telgi. In other intercepts, the police discovered that Puran Singh used to talk frequently to some Mumbai-based women introduced to him by Telgi.

Meanwhile, the EOW found that Puran Singh had once raided the South Delhi residence of one Siddharth and found a huge stack of stamp papers. But, instead of seizing them, he chose to issue a memo to Siddharth declaring that the stamp papers were found to be genuine. Technically, he should have sent them to the authorities concerned to probe the genuineness of the stamp papers.

The police then secured a search warrant against Puran Singh and during a raid in his residence, recovered over 60 air-travel tickets and the visiting card of a person who had given surety for two of the accused in the Daryaganj stamp paper case. When questioned, that person confessed to having arranged the surety on payment of Rs. 1 lakh by Puran Singh.

The police also came to know that Puran Singh had met Telgi while he was lodged in the Bangalore jail under some fictitious name. While checking the visitors' register, they noticed that his handwriting matched with one of the signatures. However, the Bangalore police then refused to part with the original register to be used as evidence, as they had already seized it for investigations. Nonetheless, the police had gathered clinching evidence validating Puran Singh's arrest.

It is learnt that the EOW had also tried to obtain his voice samples to match them with the voice in the intercepted conversations, but Puran Singh refused. Despite being ordered by a Delhi court to give the samples to the CBI, Puran Singh again refused and has moved the High Court in this regard.

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