5 cops suspended for allowing jailed Gupta to be in hotels

Five police personnel in the district were today suspended for dereliction of duty and allowing comfort to Deepak Gupta, who is jailed in the Rs 1,800 crore mining scam, police said.
Keonjhar SP Kabita Jalan suspended, a havildar and four constables engaged in security of Gupta, for dereliction of duty, an official said.
"The suspended personnel are Havildar Basant Kumar Rout and constables - Kamalakanta Diwedi, Bijay Kumar Nayak, Purosottam Das and Rohiteswar Nayak," said Arun Kumar Nayak, Reserve Inspector Keonjhar.
Gupta, who was arrested on September 10 last year and sent to jail after his bail pleas were rejected in the multi-crore mining scam, had allegedly managed to give his jail stay a skip by moving to various hospitals on health ground, police said.

Of the 164 days since his arrest, Gupta allegedly spent 90 days in various hospitals in Cuttack and Keonjhar.
Gupta was spotted at the cardio-thoracic department of SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack on Saturday without any police security.

He was allotted a cabin in the ward meant for critically ill patients. He was shifted to the orthopaedics department on Sunday, hospital sources said.
Allegations against Gupta were that all along his stay in different wards, he did not use the hospital bathroom and instead used a room in a nearby hotel booked in the name of his brother in Cuttack.

Gupta after his arrest on September 10, was admitted to Keonjhar jail hospital on September 24 last year and he stayed there till October 8.
Later, he was shifted to SCB for a month. He was in Keonjhar district headquarters hospital from December 7 to January 7 and again from January 17 to February 8. He was, however, discharged from the hospital in Cuttack yesterday following reports in media.