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Amritsar fake encounter: 30-year-long struggle for justice comes to an end for Rampreet
The special CBI court on Thursday held the three cops — Three ex-cops, inspector Dharam Singh, inspector Surinder Singh and DSP Gurdev Singh — guilty and sentenced them to life imprisonment, besides imposing a fine of ₹2 lakhs on the cops
Life has come full circle for Rampreet Singh, who was just one year old when his father Harjeet Singh was picked up and killed in a fake encounter by police.
The special CBI court on Thursday held the three cops — Three ex-cops, inspector Dharam Singh, inspector Surinder Singh and DSP Gurdev Singh — guilty and sentenced them to life imprisonment, besides imposing a fine of ₹2 lakhs on the cops. The accused were also convicted under section 218 of the IPC for submitting incorrect records.
Of the nine accused named in the case, which includes one police informer, five died during the trial, while ASI Bhupinder Singh was declared a proclaimed offender.
Harjeet was cremated along with Jaspinder Singh and Lakhwinder Singh as unclaimed dead bodies.
Standing outside the courtroom and thanking CBI public prosecutor Ashok Bagoria, Rampreet said that the verdict has brought a sense of closure.
Rampreet is married and has two children. He does odd jobs to earn a living and feels that had his father been alive his life would have been different.
“These cops ruined my childhood and youth. At a time when children of my age were playing with toys and later pursuing their careers, I was visiting the courtrooms, police stations and adumbrative office along with my grandfather Kashmir Singh- who died in 2019- seeking justice for my father,” Rampreet said who left studies after passing class 12.
Rampreet Singh said that a few years after his father’s killing his mother Amarjit Kaur re-married and took his younger brother Gurpreet Singh along, while he was left with his grandparents.
“I was told that my father had visited the house on the birth of my younger brother Gurpreet Singh in 1991. Thereafter, he disappeared and was shown killed in an encounter which turned out to be fake. Time is a great leveller, today I could see the same pain and anguish on the faces of the relatives of the accused cops, which we have endured for three decades,” Rampreet said.
