Ahmedabad Police have ordered a DCP-level inquiry after Indore businessman Pankaj Singh alleged that officers at an NE-1 checkpoint harassed him and conducted an intrusive "digital search" of his personal phone chats and gallery. (Representational Image)Ahmedabad City Police has come under scrutiny after an Indore-based businessman alleged harassment and threats from police officials deployed at a checkpoint on the National Expressway 1 (NE-1).Pankaj Singh, who describes himself on LinkedIn as a career coach and admission consultant to foreign universities, took to the platform to also allege breach of privacy by the police staff. He said he was returning to Indore from Ahmedabad with a colleague on April 11 when their vehicle was stopped near a police checkpost about three km before the Ahmedabad toll plaza on NE-1.Stating that he cooperated with the policemen in uniform as they searched his car, Parihar wrote the next day: “The officers took our mobile phones and began going through them in detail. Not a cursory glance but also opening chats, reading conversations, checking our gallery, and playing audio messages.”In his post, Parihar claimed that this search went on for 50 to 60 minutes and, at one point, the officials were sitting in the car, scrolling his and his colleague’s phones.A screenshot of the post was shared on X by entrepreneur Sandeep Manudhane. Responding, Ahmedabad City Police’s handle said the post had been taken note of.Sector-2 additional commissioner Jaypal Singh Rathore told the Indian Express on Thursday that city police commissioner Gyanendra Singh Malik had taken cognisance of the incident and ordered an inquiry into the matter, which would be supervised by DCP (Cybercrime) Laveena Sinha.Parihar, meanwhile, said on Thursday that he had been contacted by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch and that he was grateful for the prompt response by the police. The police, he said, had promised to visit him at his office in Indore on April 17 and take his detailed statement.Story continues below this adParihar said on the day of the incident, two policemen ‘giggled’ as they read private messages of his colleague. Parihar alleged that when he told the cops that they were in the “study-abroad” consulting business, “they went through his colleague’s office diary, which has notes of expenses and student loans and forex transactions.” The police staff, he said, mentioned the word ‘kabutarbazi’ among themselves. ‘Kabutarbazi’ is a street slang for illegal immigration.“I felt very violated,” Parihar said as he recounted the experience.Parihar further alleged that the cops threatened to take them to the cyber cell, drove their car for about 100 metres and repeated, “If there is something tell us now, we will settle it here.” At that point, Parihar asked them to do so. It was only then that the policemen let them go. “As we were leaving, they casually asked for ‘chai pani’… We gave them our ‘theplas’ and left,” states Parihar.He stated that he could recognise the cops by their faces. Upon being asked if thought of calling the police control room during the incident, he said, “We are not from Gujarat. If this same thing had happened in MP, I would have felt more empowered… Also, there was another car ahead of us and the police were doing the same thing to them. So, I thought this was a routine procedure.”Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram© The Indian Express Pvt LtdTags:ahmedabad