E-Paper
2015 Behbal Kalan firing: HC stays departmental proceedings against Umranangal
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Tuesday stayed departmental proceedings against suspended IPS officer Paramraj Singh Umranangal in the 2015 Behbal Kalan firing case reported after a series of sacrilege incidents
Chandigarh : The Punjab and Haryana high court on Tuesday stayed departmental proceedings against suspended IPS officer Paramraj Singh Umranangal in the 2015 Behbal Kalan firing case reported after a series of sacrilege incidents.
The high court bench of justice Jagmohan Bansal acted on the plea from Umranangal and has sought response from the state government by February 12.
The plea sought quashing of the order passed by the government appointing IPS officer B Chandrasekhar, additional director general of police (modernization), as the inquiry officer and demanded that some other officer be appointed in his place. The officer in question was a member of the special investigation team (SIT) that initiated an FIR against the petitioner thereby raising concerns about “impartiality in the process”, the plea argues.
Chandrasekhar was one of the officers who investigated the July 1994 FIR registered in Morinda about missing complaint of one Sukhpal Singh. In October 2023, a fresh FIR was registered by Punjab Police based on the SIT probe which found that Sukhpal Singh of Gurdaspur was killed in a fake encounter. Among the accused persons, Umranangal was also named.
As of departmental proceedings, the same were initiated pursuant to the registration of FIR (103) on October 21, 2015, a week after two protesters were killed allegedly in the police firing at Behbal Kalan allegedly in the police firing in the aftermath of incidents of sacrilege reported at Bargari and Burj Jawahar Singh Wala villages of Faridkot district.
