05 October,2012 07:17 AM IST | | Akela
Life has been hell for Amit Tukaram Alhat (36), a civil cleaner in the Motor Transport (MT) Department of the city police, since he blew the whistle on a superior and had him arrested by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in 2005.
Amit Alhat
Insulted, tortured and ostracised by colleagues and police officials all these years, Alhat finally decided to complain to superiors when an assistant commissioner of police (ACP) last month slapped him and ordered him to stand in the hot sun for no apparent reason.
Alhat submitted the written complaint (copy with MiD DAY) against ACP Shrikant Naik to several police authorities on September 18.
According to the complaint, Alhat was forced to take leave on September 16 because of back pain and returned to work on September 17. The complaint states that the next day, September 18, Naik slapped Alhat in the presence of office staff without mentioning any reason and told him to stand in the sun.
Alhat stood in the sun for more than half-an-hour, after which he could take it no more. Fearing more torture and having got a throbbing headache from the heat, he left office and later in the day complained in writing against Naik at the Nagpada police station and sent the complaint to several top police officers as well.u00a0"We have received the complaint against Naik," Senior Inspector Vinayak Savde of the Nagpada police station said. "The matter is under investigation."
Alhat, a resident of Pant Nagar police colony in Ghatkopar, also made several allegations against his colleagues and superiors. He said people at his workplace were angry with him as he was responsible for the arrest of a head clerk in the office of the deputy commissioner of police office (DCP), MT Department.
Alhat had accused the clerk, identified as Manchekar, of demanding Rs 700 to release his salary. Fed up with running from pillar to post for his salary even as bills kept piling up at home, Alhat approached the ACB and got Manchekar arrested on August 24, 2005.
"Since 2005 I am being harassed, insulted and abused by my colleagues and senior officials," Alhat said. "Officials do not sanction my leave and show me absent from work. I passed the constable exam, but was not given the post. Since I complained I have not been promoted. I am going through tremendous pain."u00a0His wife, Sunita, said her husband had been marked absent from work for 1,000 days since 2005 and was having trouble getting his salary.
"My husband is being targeted by officials," she said. "He is not getting his salary. We are going through financial problems. The electricity connection of my home has been disconnected and I cannot pay my children's school fees. I don't know what to do."u00a0
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