Top cop who took on Gurgaon toll plaza transferred

Gurgaon, Sep 18 (IANS) Police officer Bharti Arora, whose initiative led to the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway becoming toll free for a fortnight, was transferred ahead of a crucial hearing in the case Thursday, an official said Tuesday.

The deputy commissioner of police heading the traffic wing took on the contractor for not managing traffic on the 32-lane expressway, forcing the judiciary to order a temporary halt in toll collection.

The case will be heard Thursday in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. While the Haryana government termed the transfer of the 1998 batch IPS officer a routine exercise, as 15 others too have been shunted out, Bhatri Arora did not quit her charge Tuesday.

She had put up a foolproof case against the Expressway concessionaire Delhi-Gurgaon Super Connectivity Ltd (DGSCL), backed with evidence which eventually led the court to stay toll collection for 15 days.

It was a team set up by her which ensured smooth ride on the expressway all these days, a miracle for NCR residents for whom long queues at the Sirhol toll plaza had become a daily pain.

According to police sources, Bharti Arora had put together a proposal highlighting how resumption of toll collection would bring back the chaos at the toll plaza. Her department had also compiled videos, photographs and other evidence of smooth traffic flow in the absence of toll collection.

The department planned to submit the same to the court at the Thursday hearing. "The transfer is a huge shock for all of us. We had conducted systematic investigation and got enough evidence to prove that it is just because of toll collection that there is chaos at plaza," said a official of traffic police who did not wished to be named. "We also had visual evidences. If they were to be produced in court, the toll would have been permanently revoked," the source added.

"For years traffic police were blamed for chaos but it was Bharti Arora who highlighted the real cause and even brought to fore the miscalculated loss by the expressway company," said another official.

In recent meetings between the local administration, the contractor and National Highway Authority of India, it was Bharti Arora who refused to let a 'cosmetic decongestion plan' get a go ahead.

Gurgaon's residents are up in arms against the officer's transfer. Many have lauded her work on Facebook.

Several Resident Welfare Associations have demanded that her transfer be cancelled. Bharti Arora did not respond to requests from IANS for a reaction to this story.

Time and again we have the same story.

Where some honest officers want to do something good for the nation/society politicians at the instigation of criminals and businessmen have them transferred. Every time the politicians say the same thing, it is routine transfer but the public know it is not routine. It is just to help the criminal/businessmen/politician nexus.

That is why we want Anna for none of the present pack of politicians are interested in improving things.