Amidst the brewing fight within the walls of India’s top investigative agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation – fought between Director Alok Verma and Special Director Rakesh Asthana, a bizarre video featuring the latter has surfaced, presumably made for PR purposes.
The video likens Asthana, a Gujarat cadre of the IPS, to visionaries such as Sardar Patel, Swami Vivekananda and Subash Chandra Bose, among others. The video waxes eloquent of Asthana’s capabilities as the police commissioner of Surat in Gujarat, a post he held for several years.
In an almost Bollywood-esque entrance (think Ajay Devgn’s Bajirao Singham), Asthana’s introduction in the video is a sequence of shots, featuring him with his baton, signing papers at his desk and a shot of the medals pinned to uniform.
The voice-over then goes on to talk about Asthana’s accomplishments as a police officer – as someone who took up the responsibility of safety on his ‘honest’ shoulders.
“As police commissioner of Surat, not only has he encouraged his officers to work together in peace, and reduce the crime rate, but has also espoused values of love and trust. ”Translated from the video
Asthana is currently at the eye of a storm brewing within the CBI, which has pitted the top chief of the agency Alok Verma, against him. Verma has reportedly been critical of Asthana’s elevation to his deputy from the very beginning, with the duo more recently leveling allegation of bribery against each other.
On Monday, the CBI had reportedly booked Asthana for accepting bribes in the Moin Qureshi money laundering case.
According to a report by The Pioneer, Asthana had allegedly accepted Rs 2 crore to help Qureshi get away.
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