A senior police inspector of Unit-I Prabhakar Babar was nabbed by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) officers on November 19 while accepting a bribe of Rs 50,000 from a bar owner. Babar had threatened the hotelier that he would have him killed in an encounter or through gangsters if he did not pay up. A few days later, on November 26, the ACB trapped Sub-Inspector Sanjay Bungne of the Economic Offences Wing (EOW). Bungne was caught accepting a bribe of Rs 3,500 from a Xerox shop owner in his office at the Crime Branch.

This was the first instance of an officer being caught red handed inside the Police Headquarters.

Bungne has been placed undersuspension. Interestingly, while Babar had an office right below Sivanandhan's chamber in Crime Branch, Bungne occupied a cabin on the floor above.

What perhaps upset Crime Branch bosses most was that the ACB a day after Babar's arrest declared that at least three more officers of the Crime Branch were being watched.

Sources said soon after Bungne's arrest, Sivanandhan held a series of meetings with his officers. First he called a meeting of all officers of the EOW and the General Branch and reprimanded them severely. He told Deputy Commissioner of Police (EOW) Anant Shinde and Assistant Commissioner of police (General Branch) Madhukar Ghorpade to not only watch over their officers, but also the people that came calling on them.

Incidentally, Sivanandhan had pulled up Bungne just a couple of days before his arrest for being unfair to the complainant who filed the complaint against him. Later, Sivanandhan also had a meeting with DCP Param Bir Singh, ACP Pradeep Sawant, ACP Dashrath Avhad and 20 otherofficers from the Detection Wing.

``We will soon weed out the black sheep of the department and they will be punished,'' Sivanandhan said today while speaking to Express Newsline. ``I am very disturbed at these developments especially when the Crime Branch is doing good work,'' he said referring to the recent arms haul and arrests of several notorious gangsters.

According to ACB statistics for the year so far, the police department is the most corrupt. The ACB has arrested over 84 policemen so far this year, while only 52 men from the Revenue Department, 10 from the Education Department, 26 from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), 21 from the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB), five from the Forest Department, three from MHADA and just one from the Excise Department have been nabbed. Bungne was the 14th from Mumbai police.

The vigilance squad, Sivanandhan said, would be empowered to keep tabs on the movements of any officer of the Crime Branch it suspects ofwrongdoing.

While the squad's operation would be initially restricted to Crime Branch, considered to be the hotbed of corruption by many, it may be extended to the entire police force at a later stage. ``It will be for the police commissioner to decide that,'' Sivanandhan said.