By IANS,
Patna : A Bihar government official is in trouble for allegedly trying to protect jailed Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Mohammad Shahabuddin, from whose prison ward seven mobile phones were recovered, officials said Wednesday.
Thirty-seven mobile phones were seized from the inmates of Siwan jail during a raid early Sunday morning. A dozen mobile chargers, 15 telephone diaries, a headphone, a knife, seven bottles of imported perfume and some cash were also seized from the prisoners. Of the phones seized, seven were recovered from Shahabuddin’s ward.
However, sub-divisional officer Wadood Ahmed allegedly issued a certificate stating that no objectionable items had been found in Shahabuddin’s ward during the raid.
“Ahmed’s act stunned everyone because he was part of team, led by the district magistrate, which conducted the raid,” an official said.
He added that Siwan district magistrate Vandana Preyasi had complained to the home secretary and personnel secretary of the state government about Ahmed’s attempt to protect Shahabuddin.
On the day of the raid, jailer Ramadhar Singh complained that Shahabuddin misbehaved with him and threatened him. In his police complaint, Singh said that Shahabuddin had sent him a letter to favour an official but when he refused to sign the letter, he was threatened with dire consequences.
Last year, Shahabuddin allegedly threatened jailer Sanjeev Kumar and abused him for not allowing him to meet M.A.A. Fatmi, union minister of state for human resource development.
In 2006, the jailed MP had threatened assistant jailer Vashisht Rai, who was part of the government team stationed for his security at the All India Institute of Medical ScienceS (AIIMS) in New Delhi, where he was undergoing treatment.
A Lok Sabha member from Siwan since 1996, Shahabuddin is involved in over 40 criminal cases, including those of murder, abduction and possession of illegal arms. He was convicted in four cases till date. The RJD leader was convicted for the first time in March 2007, for his role in an attack on the Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist (CPI-ML) office in Siwan in 1998.