E-Paper
2 retired police officials to face trial in custodial death case
The special CBI court in Mohali has recently convicted and sentenced several former Punjab Police officials in a series of decades-old cases involving fake encounters and custodial killings.
A special CBI court in Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar (Mohali) has directed two former Punjab Police officials to face trial in connection with a long-pending custodial death case. The court ordered that Dalvir Singh, a retired inspector and former station house officer of Dugri, and Manjit Singh, a retired assistant sub-inspector (ASI), be summoned to face trial on May 1. The charges include criminal conspiracy, fabrication of evidence, wrongful confinement and other serious offences under various sections of the Indian Penal Code.
The case traces back to the alleged custodial death of a woman, Ramandeep Kaur, in August 2017. The matter had earlier drawn widespread attention, prompting the Punjab and Haryana high court to transfer the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
According to the CBI’s findings presented before the court, the accused officials are alleged to have illegally detained the woman and her associate, and subsequently fabricated records to justify their custody. The investigation further mentioned that official documents, including arrest and personal search memos, bore forged signatures and were allegedly prepared after the woman’s death in an attempt to cover up procedural lapses.
The probe also highlighted serious irregularities in police records, including missing entries in the malkhana register and discrepancies in official documentation, pointing towards possible destruction or tampering of evidence.
While the CBI named additional senior officers during the investigation, prosecution sanctions against them were denied by the competent authority, and hence they were not charge-sheeted in the present case.
Taking note of the material placed on record, the court observed that sufficient grounds exist to proceed against the two accused officials. Accordingly, it formally took cognisance of the offences and initiated trial proceedings.
Mukul Garg of Urban Estate, Dugri, stated that the Dugri police on August 3, 2017 arrested his fiancé Ramandeep Kaur along with him in an alleged illegal withdrawal of money and cyber crime. He added that Ramandeep Kaur died due to interrogational torture meted out to her on the intervening night of August 4 and 5, 2017. Her relatives approached the director general of police (DGP) with a complaint and when the local police came to know about it, they “manipulated” the record.
In March 2019, after high court’s intervention a special investigative team (SIT) was constituted, which, based on record and medical opinion, said that the death was due to suicide and not due to strangulation. But an FIR was registered for causing death by negligence against four cops.
Garg added that Alok Shekhar, additional chief secretary, department of home affairs, Punjab, had declined the prosecution sanctions against retired additional deputy commissioner of police Kuldeep Sharma and assistant commissioner of police (ACP) Rupinder Kaur Bhatti, who were deputed in Ludhiana, stating there are no evidence against the officials. However, he had filed a petition in the HC against the decision.
