SHUATS director held; faces multiple cases in five districts

Prayagraj (UP), Oct 03 (IANS) The Director of SHUATS administration, Vinod B Lal, who was apprehended in Lucknow on Sunday night, has faced intense questioning from police officers posted in five different districts.

The Prayagraj police produced Vinod B Lal before the court, subsequently sending him to judicial custody.

Prior to this, investigating officers from Prayagraj, Pratapgarh, Fatehpur, Kaushambhi, and Mirzapur districts conducted inquiries into various cases linked to Vinod B Lal.

Authorities have indicated that further action will be determined in accordance with the court’s directives.

The legal predicament surrounding Vinod B Lal began with an FIR lodged on June 21 by Sarvendra Vikram Singh, a resident of Civil Lines.

Singh alleged that on the night of June 20, four individuals on motorcycles intercepted him, brandishing a firearm and issuing threats. He further claimed that they assaulted him, pressuring him to withdraw a case he had previously filed against the SHUATS (Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences) vice-chancellor and others in Fatehpur.

Subsequent investigations resulted in Vinod B Lal’s name being added to the FIR, leading to his arrest during a police raid at his Lucknow farmhouse on Sunday night.

The following day, Naini police secured his custody in the case initiated by Sarvendra Vikram Singh, while Ghoorpur police obtained a remand for a case involving allegations of molestation and religious conversion, filed by a woman a few days earlier.

Officials have confirmed that Vinod B Lal now faces incarceration in both of these cases. Additionally, it has been disclosed that Vinod B Lal is entangled in multiple legal disputes across several districts of the state.

Specifically, four cases were registered against him at Naini and Ghoorpur police stations, with bail granted in two of them. Moreover, he is implicated in over a dozen cases spanning Fatehpur, Pratapgarh, Kaushambhi, and Mirzapur.

On Monday, officials from various districts, including a Circle Officer from Kaushambhi and two inspectors from Pratapgarh, joined their counterparts from Fatehpur and Mirzapur at Naini police station to question Vinod B Lal in connection with the cases within their respective jurisdictions.

A Special Investigation Team established to probe the religious conversion case is also considering seeking custody remand for further questioning.

Meanwhile, the charges against Vinod B Lal have expanded to include fraud and forgery. This development emerged after a forged Aadhaar card, bearing the name Sobaran Singh but featuring Vinod B Lal’s photograph, was discovered in his possession.

Vinod B Lal had been evading the police in two other cases, one of which pertained to a teacher recruitment scam, for which he had secured bail. He had assumed a false identity while hiding at his Lucknow farmhouse.