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BHOPAL: From late-night raids to routine seizures spread across villages miles apart, they were present everywhere – many a time simultaneously at different locations. Allegations of ‘omnipresent’ police witnesses in Madhya Pradesh’s Mauganj district have snowballed into a major controversy after scrutiny of digital crime tracking records confirmed that the same six individuals were repeatedly cited as govt witnesses in hundreds of cases registered at Laur and Naigadhi police stations in the district. The pattern of a few selected names recurring case after case emerged from FIRs accessed through Crime & Criminal Tracking Network & Systems, a home ministry project. At the centre of the allegations is Jagdish Singh Thakur, former in-charge of Naigadhi and Laur police stations, against whom complaints were lodged by an RTI activist, accusing him of misusing his position to register over 150 questionable FIRs. The complaint alleged that under his charge at the two police stations, the same favoured individuals were repeatedly cited witnesses to facilitate routine police action, justify the cases on paper and enable corruption. One of the six individuals, Amit Kushwaha, who was cited as a witness in hundreds of cases, allegedly moved with Thakur during his transfers. The activist, Kunj Bihari Tiwari, first lodged a police complaint in 2022. He filed another detailed complaint in Dec 2025, sharing ‘proof’.People say they were not ‘witnesses’, cops say probe will reveal allActing on the complaint, Mauganj SP Dilip Soni removed Thakur as Naigadhi police station incharge Sunday. “We are getting the complaint probed in detail. The complainant shared details regarding 145 FIRs with common witnesses,” Soni told TOI. He however, added that “this was not the only reason, but one of the reasons for which the action was taken”. Some of the ‘witnesses’ have now distanced themselves from the police’s move.
Dinesh Kushwaha, a vegetable vendor, told TOI: “I signed as a witness in only one or two cases where I was present. I wasn’t a witness in so many other cases. Police wrote my name as a witness without my knowledge.” Another witness, Rahul Vishwakarma, said: “I was not present during the action. Iused to sign after the accused were arrested and brought to the police station. But I did not sign as a witness in so many cases. I am a driver.” Tiwari claimed the rot runs much deeper. “I examined FIRs of more than a year and found around 200 cases with common names. When I scanned the records from the year 2000, I found similar names in about 1,000 FIRs. I am also a victim, as I was framed in a case by the same police officer,” the complainant alleged. TOIaccessed and examined copies of over 40 such FIRs and found the same names repeatedly listed as witnesses across unrelated cases. Police officers said the probe will determine whether legal procedures and norms were violated and whether disciplinary or criminal action was required.
