3 MP officials get calls to reinstate suspended jail personnel

Three bureaucrats have received calls from an unidentified person posing as leaders and ministers on different occasions, who asked them to reinstate jail officials suspended after a convicted gangster escaped from a Rewa hospital in May during treatment.
The officers, one from IAS and two from IPS, lodged a complaint against the caller with Jehangirabad police station here yesterday, police said today.
They are Madhya Pradesh Prisons Principal Secretary Vinod Kumar Semwal, Jails Director General of Police V K Singh and his Deputy Sushovan Banerjee (both IPS officers).
The man made the calls impersonating as Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, MP Ministers Gauri Shanker Shejwar, Narottam Mishra, former Home Minister Babulal Gaur and state BJP chief Nandkumar Chauhan on different occasions and asked them to reinstate the suspended jail officials, police added.

The gangster in question is Balwinder Singh, who was serving a life sentence in Rewa Central Jail.
"I got calls on my landline and cellphones from the caller, who posing as ministers, asked me to reinstate some staffers of Rewa Jail who had been suspended after Balwinder Singh escaped," Banerjee told PTI.

"We have lodged a complaint with police," he added.
The unnamed caller has been booked under Sections 419 (cheating by personation) and 507 (criminal intimidation) of IPC, Jehangirabad Police Station Inspector P S Thakur said.
"We are investigating the matter," he added.
Balwinder was admitted to a Rewa hospital on May 26 for treatment of spinal ailment from where he escaped the next day, police sources said. He hails from Aurangabad in Bihar.

He was running a criminal gang involved in inter-state kidnappings, they added.