Former Tripura chief secretary in police remand for PWD scam

Former Tripura chief secretary

Yashpal Singh, who is a key accused in a multi-crore PWD scam, was on Wednesday remanded to police custody for four days by a local court.

He was arrested from Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh on Monday and brought here on transit remand.

West district and session court judge Sabyasachi Datta Purkayastha remanded Singh to police custody on Wednesday. The government advocate Ratan Datta had sought police custody for Singh for ten days.

The Chief Judicial Magistrate of Ghaziabad allowed the transit remand and Singh was brought back to state by the Tripura police crime branch during the day.

Inspector General (Law and Order) Puneet Rastogi said the former chief secretary had been evading arrest for almost five months. The Tripura police team had been carrying out raids for over a month in Ghaziabad.

 

A police official said that Singh was detained from IRS Apartments at Indirapuram in Ghaziabad on Monday and brought to Indirapuram police station for verification. He was arrested after completing the formalities.

A team of Tripura police led by crime branch deputy superintendent of police Ajay Kumar Das had arrested the former chief secretary 128 days after being booked in the multi-crore PWD scam, the official said.

Singh was absconding since October 13 after being booked in the West Agartala police station.

The Tripura police had last year issued an arrest warrant against former PWD minister Badal Choudhury, former PWD engineer-in-chief Sunil Bhowmik, besides Singh, who had served as the chief secretary during the previous Left Front government, in connection with the more than Rs 600-crore scam on implementation of projects in the state during the Left Front regime.

Choudhury, who was a minister for four terms in the previous Left Front regime, was arrested from Agartala on October 21, days before Bhowmik was taken into custody.

Both were, however, released on bail as police failed to file a chargesheet against them.