Ahmedabad: The Gujarat high court issued notices to CID Crime cybercell officials, the director general of police, folk singer Kirtidan Gadhvi, and three others on a petition by Jayesh Parmar alleging illegal detention and custodial torture over a commercial dispute complaint filed by the singer.Justice M R Mengdey sought replies by June 17 and directed police to preserve CCTV footage from the CID Crime cybercell police station in Gandhinagar. “The CCTV footage of the concerned police station from Feb 20 to 21 shall be preserved by the concerned police authorities,” the court order reads.Parmar, a resident of Khodiyarnagar who runs an event management company, submitted that Gadhvi filed a complaint accusing him of a ticket scam for a Navratri show last year, causing him a loss of Rs 8-10 crore. There was an arbitration clause in the business contract, but Gadhvi and others resorted to criminal action, and the cybercell cops acted on the complaint, though they had no jurisdiction to handle a commercial dispute without an allegation of cyberfraud.He alleged that the cops illegally picked him up, detained him and tortured him in custody to pressure him to settle the dispute on their terms. He was detained for 14 hours, and after being released, he filed a complaint with the Detection of Crime Branch and the DGP. Parmar has urged the HC to declare the actions of the cybercell sleuths as illegal and sought direction to the DGP to initiate a departmental inquiry against the officials, including SP Rajdipsinh Zala and his subordinates, who were involved in the episode.
