Ballia. Bharouli trisection of Ballia situated on the border of UP-Bihar. It was 1.30 am on Wednesday night. Like every day, lines of trucks and policemen and brokers busy in extorting money. Meanwhile, two men wearing jeans and t-shirt get down from a truck. They bargain with the policemen and brokers to let their truck out.

Suddenly the policemen and brokers lose their senses when they realize that they have been surrounded by a large number of policemen. It is revealed that one of the persons who arrived in jeans and t-shirt is ADG Varanasi Piyush Mordia and the other is DIG Azamgarh Vaibhav Krishna. Both the officers had reached there in a truck from Buxar. This sudden raid causes a stampede, but two policemen and 16 brokers are caught. 

As soon as this information was received, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also ordered action against senior officials. Ballia SP Devranjan Verma and ASP Durga Tiwari have been removed from their posts and put on waiting list. CO Shubh Suchit has been suspended. Vikrant Veer, who was the commandant of 32nd Battalion PAC, has been made the SP of Ballia.

Earlier, after the raid, a case was registered against 23 people including SO Pannalal, outpost in-charge Rajesh Kumar Prabhakar and seven policemen. The station in-charge and all eight policemen of Korantadih outpost were also suspended, while three policemen involved in extortion, Vishnu Yadav, Deepak Mishra and Balram Singh, escaped and are being searched for. The police recovered Rs 37,500 in cash and 14 bikes, besides 25 mobiles from the spot. Keeping in view the seriousness of the case, the government has also ordered a vigilance inquiry of the properties of the CO, SO and outpost in-charge.

Even Ballia police did not get any clue about the raid 

This was a big police action on Wednesday night under the leadership of ADG on the complaint of illegal recovery from trucks and it was so confidential that even Ballia police was not taken into confidence. Bharouli Tiraha falls in Narhi police station area and the policemen of Korantadih outpost were on duty at this checkpost. The officers were receiving complaints of illegal recovery from trucks coming from Buxar in Bihar. Mining takes place in Buxar and sand, soil, animals and coal etc. are transported in trucks from there.

A plan was made to catch him red handed

The officer had reached there with the police team only to confirm the complaints. DIG Vaibhav Krishna said that to catch the corrupt policemen red handed, he and the ADG first visited the spot and then made a plan and conducted a raid. He said that one thousand trucks pass through here every day and Rs 500 was being collected from each truck. During the raid, first two constables were arrested.

After this, the brokers were caught. After this, when the team reached Korantadih outpost, extortion was being done there as well. A constable and a broker escaped from here. He said that such raids will continue on the instructions of the Chief Minister.

Annual recovery of Rs 18 crore

At the rate of Rs 500 per truck, Rs 1.5 crore was collected every month and Rs 18 crore annually. It is being told that a large part of this also went to Bihar Police stations. DIG told that the investigation of this case has been handed over to Azamgarh ASP Shubham Agarwal. Police station in-charge Pannalal was not present on the spot. His residence has been sealed. The names of the arrested policemen are Hardayal and Satish Gupta.

Reiki done while sitting in a truck

ADG Piyush Mordia and DIG Vaibhav Krishna reached Buxar around 9:30 pm on Wednesday night. From here, they came to Bharouli in plain clothes on a truck. Near Bharouli crossing, they saw a long queue of trucks. Three policemen were sitting on chairs and one was collecting money. After this, both the officers went to Korantadih outpost. Collection was going on here as well. After going some distance, they turned the truck and went to Buxar again. Both the officers planned the raid and then returned to Bharouli.

Vehicles with Varanasi, Lucknow and Prayagraj numbers were used

ADG formed three police teams in Buxar. From Bharouli trisection, one road goes towards Ghazipur, the second towards Rasra and the third towards Ballia. All the three teams cordoned off different roads. The vehicles used in the team had numbers of Varanasi, Prayagraj and Lucknow.