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Custodial death: CBI lodges FIR against four Ludhiana cops
Slapped with charges of causing death due to negligence; woman had died in custody at the Dugri police station in 2017 after being called in for questioning
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) lodged an FIR against four city cops, including an inspector, an assistant sub-inspector (ASI) and two constables, in the case of a woman’s custodial death at the Dugri Police station on August 5, 2017.
The Punjab and Haryana high court had in March this year ordered a CBI probe into the matter following a plea filed by Mukul Garg of Ludhiana, the deceased woman’s fiance.
The CBI has slapped section 304-A (causing death due to negligence) against the cops, who have been identified as inspector Dalbir Singh, ASI Sukhdev Singh, constables Rajwinder Kaur and Amandeep Kaur.
In his plea, Garg, a resident of Urban Estate, Dugri, mentioned that the Dugri Police on August 3, 2017 arrested him and his fiance, Ramandeep Kaur, in a case of alleged illegal withdrawals of money. He added that Ramandeep died on the intervening night between August 4 and 5 after being tortured during the interrogation. The family, hea said, approached the director general of police (DGP) with a complaint and when the local police came to know about it, they “manipulated” the record.
After the HC’s intervention in March 2019, a special investigative team (SIT) was constituted, which, based on record and medical opinion, said Ramandeep had ended her own life and was not strangled as alleged.
During the hearing of the case, the court raised concerns about hesitation wounds on Kaur’s wrists and the recovery of a knife from her undergarments, which was handed to ASI Sukhdev Singh, but then misplaced. The SIT report noted discrepancies, including the knife’s disappearance after being handed over by doctors conducting the post-mortem examination. The SIT report itself recorded that the women constables on duty had no satisfactory reply about how Ramandeep got access to the knife in police custody. Besides, questions were also raised on police officials ignoring the wounds.
The CBI has also mentioned the court orders and the copy of the FIR lodged by the Dugri police station on June 13, 2019.
Garg added that the police have used all tactics to brush the matter under the carpet and no action was taken against the culprits responsible for Ramandeep’s death, which forced him to approach the HC.
