EYEING A RETURN TICKET?

PARAM BIR SINGH

- Kiran D. Tare

When Param Bir Singh, director general (DG) of the Maharashtra Home Guard, flew down to Mumbai from Chandigarh on November 25—after going missing for 231 days—he had probably made up his mind to face investigation in the extortion cases against him. Singh reached his home in South Mumbai’s Malabar Hill, changed to formals, and headed for the Kandivali unit of the Mumbai Police crime branch. There he underwent six hours of interrogation by deputy commissioner of police Nilotpal Mishra and a police inspector—junior officers who had reported to Singh till he was unceremoniously removed as Mumbai police chief on March 20.

Singh’s return was not voluntary though. The Supreme Court, on November 18, had asked the 1988 batch IPS officer to disclose his whereabouts if he wanted his plea seeking protection from arrest by the Mumbai Police to be heard. A day earlier, a Mumbai court had started the procedure to declare Singh a ‘proclaimed offender’ in one of the extortion cases. The Supreme Court, on November 22, granted him protection from arrest till December 6 and directed him to join the probe.

Singh claims he was in Chandigarh throughout his absence from Mumbai. While some media reports suggested he was in the US, Nepal or Switzerland, Singh’s brother Manbir Singh Bhadana, a resident of Chandigarh, says Singh had stayed with him for three months. “Then he moved out; we don’t know where. We have not been in touch with him for close to three months now,” The Indian Express recently quoted Bhadana as saying.