Maharashtra cop given ‘clean chit’ after four years complains of political witch hunt

He was to be promoted as an Assistant Commissioner of Police on the day of his retirement in 2015. But anti-drugs crusader Suhas Gokhale was arrested at midnight on the charge of protecting drug smugglers, spent 16 days in prison and fought for his honour the last four years.

The Maharashtra Crime Branch this week informed the court that there was no evidence against him, following which he was acquitted.

Sources close to the police officer claimed that Gokhale had acquired a reputation of being an honest cop and he was cracking down on the drugs mafia, which involved powerful people.

But when he questioned a seizure of Mephedrone (meow meow) from the cupboard of a constable from Marine Drive police station and declared that the material did not look like the drug, he was arrested on the charge of being associated with the drugs mafia. The tests revealed that the material was Ajinomoto but the report was withheld from the court till this week.

“My 30 years of service and my reputation had gone for a toss. People who knew me as the anti-drugs crusader were now questioning me as if I was the mastermind behind the peddlers. I lived with this humiliation for more than four years, alone in Nashik. I would always tell my son that I will not die until this blot is off my name,” he was quoted as saying.

In a series of tweets, his son asked, “I only have one question to all those who support the BJP and claim to be nationalists and profess love for those in uniform…will you have the courage to open your mouths and speak up? …You all want officers that are honest and clean. But do you speak up when the system crushes them? “

· A "clean chit" after BJP tortured a decorated officer for years My father, Suhas Gokhale, was arrested by Modi govt on the eve of his retirement. He had finished his work on the last day of his 30-year-service and was looking forward to his retirement parade the next day

· It was an especially poignant moment for my father who served 14 of his 30 years in uniform in a state of partial paralysis after being injured in the line of duty. Allegedly on orders from the PM & Mah. CM, they arrested him at midnight - the night before his retirement

· When his fellow officers were at the retirement parade in the morning, he was thrown into jail. He kept pleading that he be allowed to attend his parade at least but they said no. But directions from “Saheb” in Delhi were clear - don’t let him have a graceful retirement.

· After that, they tortured him for four years. Despite the court (while granting him bail) stating that there was no evidence against him, the “nationalists who seeks-votes-in-the-name-of-our-uniformed-personnel” kept persecuting him for 4 years.

· They tarnished his reputation, jailed him, persecuted him, & put him into a place where he started suffering from hypertension and other ailments. They tried to break him and humiliated him.

· And all through these 4 years, I saw him constantly repeating and saying “Saket, I have done no wrong. For 30 years I’ve defended my country and my Constitution. What did I do to deserve this?”