A sepoy has been suspended by the Commissionerate Police for allowing the person, who has been accused of brandishing a knife and threatening the private secretary (PS) to the special secretary of the Housing and Urban Development (H&UD) department inside the Odisha Secretariat on Saturday, without an entry pass.
The sepoy has been identified as Bijay Kumar Behera (badge no 690). He was on duty and deployed at Gate number-2 of the Secretariat here yesterday.
Twin city Commissioner of Police (CP) Dr RP Sharma said, “After verifying an enquiry report submitted by Yakub Khan, ACP in charge of secretariat security, we have suspended a sepoy for his laxity in allowing the youth in without an entry pass.”
The enquiry report revealed that sepoy Bijay had allowed Sushant Nayak to enter into the Secretariat without verifying the entry pass of the visitor. The sepoy neither physically frisked the person to check whether he carried any incriminating articles with him nor did he ask for a visitor pass from him, the Commissioner said.
“It was a gross mistake by the sepoy to allow a visitor without an entry pass. No other police staff is responsible for it. We have verified CCTV cameras and interrogated other police personnel on duty yesterday before holding him guilty,” Dr Sharma said, adding the incident occurred at about 11.40 am yesterday.
“We are planning to beef up security measures inside the Secretariat after this incident. For this we have reviewed the security system. Metal detectors, which are in sa defunct state now, will be repaired soon,” he added.
The Commissioner further said a proposal for strengthening of security measures inside the Secretariat had been submitted to the Home department earlier by the commissionerate police. Among the measures suggested in the proposal are installation of double gate with the holding area to regulate entry gates, installation of a baggage scanner, allowing visitors in the selected two gates of the Secretariat and physical checking with metal detectors by the checking staff on the visitors.
“I hope we will get a positive result on it soon,” Sharma said.
The double gate with holding area to regulate entry gates are used widely in important offices in New Delhi, he said.
Police sources said five platoons (150 police personnel) of police forces of the commissionerate police, supervised by an ACP rank officer, are deployed inside the Secretariat to check the law and order situation.
Meanwhile, the police have detained Sushant Kumar Nayak of Dhenkanal for showing knife to threaten Sasmita Mallick, the PS to the special secretary of the H&UD department.
“Though no complaint has been lodged from the victim so far, we have detained Sushant to interrogate in the case,” the Commissioner said.
Notably, Sushant allegedly take recourse to the extreme step after being fed up with the delay in his appointment under the rehabilitation scheme, sources said.
“His father was an employee of the department. After his father’s death, this man wanted a job on compassionate grounds. He was angry because of this. Those present at the spot at the time of the incident said he did put the knife to the PS,” said the ACP in charge of secretariat security had said yesterday.
Prasanta Patnaik