The Punjab and Haryana high court has ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the custodial death of a woman reported in August 2017 in Ludhiana.
The court acted on the plea from one Mukul Garg, who had approached the high court in 2020 seeking a CBI probe into the custodial death of his fiancée. As per the plea, Garg and the woman, Ramandeep Kaur were being probed in an alleged illegal withdrawal of money case registered on August 3, 2017, by Dugri police station in Ludhiana. They were “illegally” picked on August 3, 2017, by the police for investigation and it was during that she died due to “interrogational torture meted out to her” on the intervening night of August 4 and 5, 2017. Her relatives approached the director general of police (DGP) with a complaint and when the local police came to know about it, they “manipulated” the record, the plea alleged.
In March 2019, upon high court’s intervention a special investigative team (SIT) was constituted, which based on record and medical opinion said that the death was due to suicide and not due to strangulation. But an FIR was registered for causing death by negligence.
The high court bench of justice Pankaj Jain observed that Garg changed his stance before the SIT and claimed that police forcibly made them cremate the woman without waiting for her parents and relatives, but he told the magistrate that Kaur had no surviving legal heirs except him. It further added that it had no reason to doubt the findings of the medical board that the death was suicidal as there was spare area of 2 inches on the right side of the throat and on the left side of the mouth there were marks of dribbling of saliva present.
“The issue that has caught the attention of this court is with respect to the hesitation cuts on both the wrists of the deceased and further recovery of a knife from the undergarments of the deceased which was handed over to ASI Sukhdev Singh, but was conspicuously misplaced by him,” it said, adding that the SIT report itself recorded that the women constables on duty had no satisfactory reply as to how and from where the knife came in the possession Kaur who was in police custody. Not only this, all the police officials feigned ignorance about the cut marks on the wrists of the deceased, it said, adding that these cuts on the wrists must have bled.
{{/usCountry}}“The issue that has caught the attention of this court is with respect to the hesitation cuts on both the wrists of the deceased and further recovery of a knife from the undergarments of the deceased which was handed over to ASI Sukhdev Singh, but was conspicuously misplaced by him,” it said, adding that the SIT report itself recorded that the women constables on duty had no satisfactory reply as to how and from where the knife came in the possession Kaur who was in police custody. Not only this, all the police officials feigned ignorance about the cut marks on the wrists of the deceased, it said, adding that these cuts on the wrists must have bled.
{{/usCountry}}“It is surprising that none of the police personnel on duty noticed blood and cuts on wrists of the deceased. The same has been brushed under the carpet only by saying that the women constables were negligent,” it recorded, adding that SIT “fumbled somewhere”.
It further recorded that the report of SIT is “discrepant” on the vital link with respect to the deceased coming in possession of knife and the knife disappearing from the entire investigation after having been handed over by the doctors who conducted the post-mortem examination.
“It is a case of death in police custody. The state cannot be allowed to hide behind the plea of shifting stand of petitioner. It cannot be a ground to deny fair investigation. Despite having been constituted under the orders passed by this court, SIT ignored vital questions which are necessary for fair investigation of this case,” the bench said, further ordering a CBI probe. It also directed the trial court to put proceedings on hold awaiting supplementary charge-sheet from the CBI.