Custodial death: Keep proceedings against accused cops in abeyance: HC to Bathinda court
After hearing a petition by the accused Punjab police inspector Navpreet Singh and others, justice Sanjay Vashisht passed an interim order stating, “further proceedings by the judicial magistrate first class-cum (JMIC)- illaqa magistrate, Bathinda, shall be kept in abeyance, till pronouncement of the order in the petition by this court.”
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Saturday stayed proceedings being undertaken by a Bathinda court against five police personnel in a case of an alleged culpable homicide.
After hearing a petition by the accused Punjab police inspector Navpreet Singh and others, justice Sanjay Vashisht passed an interim order stating, “further proceedings by the judicial magistrate first class-cum (JMIC)- illaqa magistrate, Bathinda, shall be kept in abeyance, till pronouncement of the order in the petition by this court.”
Justice Vashisht heard the arguments and reserved the order.
The five police personnel had filed a petition in the HC on March 17, seeking the quashing of criminal proceedings initiated by a Bathinda district court.
The trial court in Bathinda had fixed the next hearing for April 7, and the accused cops, who were shifted to Bathinda police lines after the judicial probe, have not appeared before the trial even once since February 27.
It was alleged that the deceased Bhinder Singh, a resident of Lakhi Jungle village in Bathinda, was picked up by the CIA-1 team for a case of allegedly possessing an illegal weapon on October 17.
Though the police denied keeping him in custody, the judicial report relied upon circumstantial evidence to indict the cops.
A judicial probe was initiated after the deceased’s brother Satnam Singh, who was lodged in Ferozepur central prison, on October 19 last year wrote to sessions judge, Ferozepur, alleging that his brother was “illegally detained, interrogated, and tortured to death by the police” after which the complaint was forwarded to Bathinda district and sessions judge for an inquiry.
A fact-finding report by Bathinda JMIC Kuldeep Singh, filed on February 18 this year, had concluded that inspector Navpreet Singh, the then head of the crime investigating agency (CIA)-1, head constable Rajwinder Singh, constables- Gaganpreet Singh, Harjit Singh, Jaswinder Singh were responsible for Bhinder’s death and attempted to cover it up with a fabricated story.
The judicial probe had directed the police personnel to appear before it to face trial for murder, causing the disappearance of evidence of the offence and other offences as it concluded that Bhinder was kept by the CIA team in custody illegally in October last year and then they tried to fabricate the alleged murder into an accidental drowning.
The judicial findings relied upon the digital, and forensic evidence, documents and a statement of a doctor to rubbish the police theory that Bhinder died due to drowning at a lake of the defunct Guru Nanak Dev Thermal Power Plant in the city area.