Suspended Sanaullah jailor Rajni Sehgal booked forcing an undertrial to sit for IGNOU jail paper

SRINAGAR: Rajni Sehgal, the jail officer who was placed under suspension after Pakistani prisoner Sanaullah Haq Ranjay was killed by a fellow convict, is being charged in a new case.

She is accused of colluding with a jail superintendent in forcing an under trial convict to sit for an Indira Gandhi National Open University jail paper on her behalf.

Sehgal was heading J&K's Kot Bhalwal central jail in Jammu outskirts when Vinod Kumar, a former soldier who is serving a life sentence for killing a fellow comrade in Leh, attacked Sanaullah. As investigations into the Pakistan prisoner's case deepened, the other case came to light.

It turns out that Sehgal had conspired with the superintendent of Jammu's district jail at Amphalla to get a proxy candidate to appear in an examination conducted by IGNOU.

IGNOU is running study centres in various J&K jails including Amphalla jail and superintendents at these jails are their main supervisors. The MA social science examination was conducted on 25 June 2012 in Amphalla jail under the overall supervision of superintendent Vinod Kumar, who has retired from service, recently.

The police formally registered an FIR under sections 120-B, 115, 419, 420, 468 and 471 RPC and 511 and 2/5 Prevention of Unfair Means Examination Act, 1987, against the two jails officers, Rajni Sehgal and Vinod Kumar. Registered with Pucca Danga police station, the case alleges the two committed forgery, fraud, impersonation and unfair means.

The proxy candidate has been identified as Paramjit Singh Slathia, a resident of Gurha Slathia, in Jammu outskirts.

The whistle blower in the case is another under trial. Ravinder Singh of Vijaypur approached the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate claiming to be the witness of the impersonation case. It was on the basis of his testimony that the police seized the answer sheets from IGNOU centres following which the case was registered.

Additional DGP K Rajindra Kumar, who heads the state's prison department, said he will wait for the police investigations before taking a call. Investigators say the lady officer faces the prospects of arrest.

Investigators also confirmed that the officer has passed the examination taking the proxy route.