E-Paper
Life imprisonment for seven for ‘sacrificing’ 2 young siblings
Six years after two young siblings were sacrificed by their family members in connivance with a tantrik, a Bathinda district court on Thursday pronounced life imprisonment to seven persons.
Six years after two young siblings were sacrificed by their family members in connivance with a tantrik, a Bathinda district court on Thursday pronounced life imprisonment to seven persons, including parents and grandmother. On March 8, 2017, 5-year-old Ranjodh Singh and his sister Anamika (3) were found dead at their residence in Kotfattta village of Bathinda, when six members of the deceased were performing occult rituals.
The two children were killed in blind faith that the heinous act would help their paternal aunt Gagandeep Kaur conceive a baby. Broken bulbs were found stuffed in the mouths of the deceased.
Pronouncing the quantum of punishment in a packed courtroom in the afternoon, an order of the additional district and sessions judge Baljinder Singh Sra stated that “no doubt most of the factors to award the capital punishment are met out in this case. However, the court desisted it due to socio-economic status, illiteracy and age.”
The court pronounced the deceased’s grandmother Nirmal Kaur; parents Kulwinder Singh and Randhir Kaur; uncle Jaspreet Singh; paternal aunts Ramandeep Kaur, Gagandeep Kaur for murder and hatching a conspiracy of the gruesome murder of young children.
A resident of Kalanwali in the adjoining Sirsa district of Haryana, Lakwinder Singh alias Lakhi baba, a tantrik, was also convicted of murder. All seven have been directed to pay a penalty of ₹20,000 for 302 (murder) and 120-B (conspiracy) charges. All seven were found guilty on March 20.
Postmortem reports of the children stated that the duo was killed with manual strangulation, and they died instantly.
Medical examination of the deceased had recorded that the lower jaws of Ranjodh were fractured. Prosecution lawyer Charan Pal Brar said the party would approach the Punjab and Haryana high court with a plea to term the crime as ‘rarest of the rare’ thus awarding capital punishment.
Shoddy probe: The local court also pointed out the shoddy police investigation and named then station house officer (SHO of Kotfattta), also an investigating officer, Krishan Kumar for “conducting a dishonest investigation adding that he lied in the court. He was in cohort with the accused and did not discharge his duty honestly and in accordance with law.”
The court observed that IO held a “perfunctory investigation” and “fudged the record” after which the tantrik Lakhwinder was earlier acquitted during the investigation on flimsy grounds.
The 60-page court order gave a detailed account of the gross professional misconduct of Kumar (now retired) to give a clean chit to the tantrik. The crime that led to a shockwave suffered a hurdle when the complaint turned hostile in the court.
Convict Kulwinder’s uncle Labh Singh had registered a first information report (FIR) at Kotfatta police station about the murder of children. On his complaint, a murder case was registered against the family.
However, he took a U-turn on charges against his sister-in-law, nephews and others and the development was duly recorded in the court order.
Residents of Kotfatta formed Insaf Morcha for justice and two villagers emerged as key witnesses in the court after Labh Singh turned hostile. Paranjit Singh was a witness when the convicted family on March 4, 2017, was gearing up to sacrifice children.
Ram Singh was among the complainant Labh Singh and his brother Mukhtiar Singh to reach the scene of the crime where kids were found killed by the tantrik and decade’s family members on March 8, 2017.
