A district court issued bailable arrest warrants against five Bathinda policemen, including inspector Navpreet Singh, on Thursday after they failed to appear before the judicial magistrate in a case where they were indicted for the murder of a villager kept in illegal police custody.
The court of judicial magistrate, first class (JMIC) Kuldeep Singh fixed the next hearing on March 10 as the lawyers in Bathinda district court were on strike and directed to serve the warrants to the cops through the office of Bathinda senior superintendent of police (SSP).
A fact-finding report by Bathinda JMIC Kuldeep Singh, filed on February 18, concluded that inspector Navpreet Singh, the then head of the crime investigating agency (CIA)-1, and four constables were responsible for Bhinder Singh’s death and attempted to cover it up with a fabricated story.
As per the information, the JMIC had also ordered sending a copy of the fact-finding to the state human rights commission.
The court had asked the five cops to appear before the court on February 27. After they failed to do so, the court issued bailable arrest warrants against them.
The accused cops were deployed in the CIA-1 when Bhinder, a resident of Lakhi Jungle village, died on October 17 last year.
{{/usCountry}}The accused cops were deployed in the CIA-1 when Bhinder, a resident of Lakhi Jungle village, died on October 17 last year.
{{/usCountry}}Inspector Navpreet and his team had claimed that Bhinder died by drowning in a city lake when he was trying to escape a police party at night.
However, the judicial probe trashed the claim and concluded that the deceased was subjected to waterboarding, a notorious torture technique.
The fact-finding report had ordered that Navpreet and four constables are liable to be prosecuted for murder, causing the disappearance of evidence and other offences.
The other four cops indicted are head constable Rajwinder Singh, constables— Gaganpreet Singh, Harjit Singh and Jaswinder Singh.