Punjab: Phagwara lawyer, friend missing: Cops suspect ‘murder’, prime accused arrested from Gujarat
History-sheeter Harvinder Singh, who jumped parole on April 23, was caught in Kutch. He is serving a life term for the 2012 murder of then Moga DSP and his woman friend
History-sheeter Harvinder Singh, 35, wanted for the recent kidnapping and ‘suspected’ murder of a lawyer and his woman companion in Phagwara, was arrested from a dhaba at Lakadia village, 52km from Bhuj, the district headquarters of Kutch, on Monday and is being brought to Kapurthala district for interrogation.
Deputy inspector general of police (DIG), Jalandhar Range, Naveen Singla said that Harvinder, who had jumped parole on April 23, was being brought back on transit remand after he was caught in a joint operation with Gujarat Police. “He is the key suspect behind the kidnapping and ‘possible’ murder of a local lawyer Sanjeev Kumar and his friend, Anju Pal, who have been missing from Phagwara since April 19,” Singla said.
Harvinder, alias Pinder, was serving life imprisonment for the brutal murder of then Moga deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Balraj Singh Gill and his woman friend, Monika Kapila, at a Ludhiana farmhouse in 2012. He was released on parole two months ago and was to report back to the prison on April 23.
Police suspect Harvinder and his accomplices may have eliminated Sanjeev, 44, and Anju, 42. Though the police are yet to recover the bodies, they have confiscated the lawyer’s Hyundai i20 car from Ludhiana.
Phagwara superintendent of police Rupinder Kaur said: “Preliminary investigation reveals that Harvinder has possibly killed both Sanjeev and Anju. We have arrested three of his local accomplices and will be interrogating him.”
During a joint interrogation by the Gujarat and Punjab Police, Harvinder is learnt to have confessed to kidnapping Sanjeev and Anju on the night of April 19 and murdering them the next day. He fled Punjab and went to Kutch, where he took up a job at a roadside eatery.
In his complaint at Phagwara Sadar police station on April 23, Sanjeev’s father Sudesh Lal said his son had gone to meet his friend, Anju, at her seventh-floor flat in a high-rise building near Paragpur village on the Jalandhar-Ludhiana national highway. Anju was staying there with her 16-year-old daughter from an earlier marriage.
“Harvinder and Anju were in a relationship earlier. He along with three accomplices managed to sneak into the building and barged into her flat on April 19. Sanjeev and Anju were taken away at gunpoint after the girl was confined to a room,” a police official said.
On April 23, security staff of the building managed to enter the apartment and rescue the teenager.
Police sources said Anju also had a criminal background.
Harvinder was convicted for the high-profile murder of then Moga DSP (headquarters) Balraj Singh Gill and his friend Monika Kapila during a robbery attempt at an industrialist’s farmhouse on Humbra Road near Ludhiana on February 1, 2012. The body of Gill, a President medal awardee, was found with his throat slit and face smashed, while Kapila’s body was recovered from a bathroom at the farmhouse.
Six people were arrested and in September 2015, Harvinder and his accomplices Pritpal and Umesh were convicted for the double murder. Their aides Hassanjit Singh and Ravinder Singh were convicted for conspiracy and forgery and were sentenced to imprisonment for seven years, while another accomplice Davinder Singh was given five years’ imprisonment.
