Retired police inspector booked for beating bus driver on Brahmapuri road

A shocking case has come to light at Brahmapuri police station in Chandrapur district. Police circles were rattled after the First Class Judicial Magistrate's court gave a clear order to register an FIR. Sudhakar Ambhore, the then station house officer of Brahmapuri and now a retired police inspector, has been accused of brutally beating a travels bus driver with a stick in the middle of the road. Brahmapuri police have finally registered a serious case against him on charges of splitting open the driver's head, abusing him, and illegally confining him at the police station.

The action follows an order by the First Class Judicial Magistrate Court, Brahmapuri, in Criminal Miscellaneous Application No. 28/2024. The bus driver is Mohan Shalikram Adivkar (42), a resident of Karanja in Washim district who lives in the Hudkeshwar area of Nagpur. On November 26, 2023, he was driving his bus (registration MH-49-AT-3625) with passengers from Gadchiroli to Nagpur. Around 3:30 pm, his bus was stopped behind other vehicles because the Brahmapuri railway gate was closed. When the gate opened and vehicles ahead began moving, a light sky-blue Innova car (registration MH-29-AR-8855) came from behind on the wrong side. A man in plain clothes got out, blocked the bus, abused the driver in obscene language and signalled him to stop. Because of the traffic jam the driver could not stop, so the man drove off towards Brahmapuri in the Innova.

Around 3:45 pm, when the bus stopped at Christanand Hospital Square in Brahmapuri, the same man came up to the bus again, pulled the driver out and began kicking and punching him. At that moment, traffic police constable Firoz Pathan, who was on duty there, arrived, and the man took the police stick from Pathan's two-wheeler. On inquiry it emerged that the man who assaulted the driver was none other than Sudhakar Ambhore, the then station house officer of Brahmapuri police station. Ambhore struck the driver hard on the legs and directly on the head with the government-issue stick, causing a serious head injury from which blood began flowing. He also beat the bus conductor, Manish Bhoyar, saying "our rule runs here."

When the injured driver asked to be taken to the nearby Christanand hospital, Ambhore forced all the passengers off the bus and made the bleeding driver himself drive the vehicle to the police station. There, his alcohol test was taken, which came back negative. A policeman then took the lock code of the driver's mobile phone by intimidation and deleted videos and evidence that citizens had recorded at the scene. That night the driver had to get a CT scan done at his own expense. After treatment, when he went to the police station to file a complaint, sub-inspector Sangamitra Bamble and sub-inspector Prashant Khobragade, who were on duty, sided with station house officer Ambhore, refused to register his complaint and sent him away.

Getting no relief locally, the driver filed written complaints with the sub-divisional police officer, the superintendent of police and elected representatives. He finally sought relief from the Brahmapuri court under section 156(3). Following the court's order, Brahmapuri police have registered a case against retired police inspector Sudhakar Ambhore under sections 294 (obscene acts and abuse), 324 (causing hurt with a dangerous weapon), 341 (wrongful restraint) and 504 (insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) of the Indian Penal Code, and section 145(2) of the Maharashtra Police Act. The further investigation has been handed to sub-inspector Revansiddha Kadam. The complainant has also raised questions about the ownership of the Innova car allegedly used, and the case has drawn the attention of the entire district since a senior retired police officer has been booked.