A day after Chandigarh police arrested the main accused Paramveer Singh Dhola, 19, behind the wheel of a speeding Volkswagen Beetle that claimed the life of three and left four others injured in Dhanas, the court of the duty magistrate on Sunday sent the accused to two-day police custody.
The police had sought four-day remand citing that it needs to investigate the accused’s hideouts and get his identification done by the eyewitnesses.
However, defence counsel Tarminder Singh, along with counsels Navi Bajwa and Sunil Gill, opposed the police remand, stating that there is nothing to recover from the accused.
The accused, according to the sources, has told police that a dog came in front of his car and while trying to evade it his car rammed into a bike. The accused further said due to the collision his car’s airbags were deployed, blocking his vision.
Questions on car’s registration number
There is uncertainty over the Beetle car’s registration numbers, with the sources in the police department claiming that on the same number, a Polo car is registered in Fatehgarh Sahib in Punjab. The Beetle car with Punjab registration number (PB23-J-0001) is in the name of Kamaljit Singh, the father of the accused, who is one of the directors of a mall in Zirakpur.
Police will now contact the RLA officials to verify if the car in question has the original registration number.
{{/usCountry}}Police will now contact the RLA officials to verify if the car in question has the original registration number.
{{/usCountry}}“We will seek written records from RLA as the car is from 2010, and there could be a clerical error too as, at that time, the registration of the vehicles was done offline. In case, the number on the Beetle is found to be fake, we will register a forgery case against the car owner,” a senior officer said.
UT SSP Kanwardeep Kaur said, “We will also interrogate the accused regarding the same. We will verify if the Beetle car owner got the number transferred or if he was using a forged number.”
Dramatic escape
Police investigations have established that the accused fled the spot, acting as one of the rescuers.
Police have recovered a video clip in which the accused can be seen screaming and urging people to call an ambulance. “Other than a few people who saw the accused exit the car, the rest didn’t know that he was the one driving the car,” a police officer said.
The accused is a national-level shooting player and a BA first-year student at SD College in Sector 32. According to the sources, he took a lift from a two-wheeler which dropped him at the Sector 25 firing range. His father picked him up from there and took him to their residence in Sector 21, Panchkula. The accused was then taken to Healing Hospital in Sector 34 by his father, uncle and a few friends, sources in the police department said.
“His uncle Jaspal Singh later visited the spot a few hours after the accident and found out that seven persons had been injured in the accident, following which the accused went underground and stayed in a farmhouse in Banur. Thereafter, he also allegedly stayed at the house of his friend in Zirakpur,” said an officer privy to the investigations.
According to the officials, two male family members of the accused may also land in legal trouble for allegedly harbouring the accused.
SSP said that all those who harboured the accused would be booked.
A total of 15 teams under the supervision of SP City, Mridul and DSP Gurmukh Singh and Sarangpur SHO Rohit Kumar raided the different hideouts of the accused and examined CCTV cameras along with using technical and human assistance to identify the accused.
The cops have also identified the female friend of the accused who was inside the car at the time of the accident on May 18.
Cops identify girl
The police have also identified the girl who was inside the car at the time of the incident. Identified as Raman, the girl is also a shooting player and competes in the 10m air pistol category, police said.
In the video clips, which went viral on social media after the incident, she can be seen going back to the car and retrieving her pistols, according to sources. “Both the car occupants parted ways and escaped separately from the spot”, a police officer said.
“We will call the girl to join investigations,” the SSP said.
A total of three victims have succumbed to injuries to date after the speeding car first rammed into a motorcycle before hitting people present on the roadside near the Dhanas Community Centre on Wednesday evening. Three victims are still undergoing treatment.
Police have registered an FIR under Sections 279 (Rash Driving), 337 (Causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at Sarangpur Police station.