KOTKAPURA FIRING: Ex-SHO arrested, sent to day’s police custody

SIT includes Sections 409 and 467 of IPC against Pandher to the FIR registered in 2015

The special investigation team (SIT) probing the 2015 police firing incidents, arrested then Kotkapura SHO Gurdeep Singh Pandher by adding Sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) and 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc) of the IPC in first information report (FIR) registered on Pandher’s complaint on October 14, 2015, against the protesters.

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This is the third arrest in police firing cases in last 10 days. The SIT arrested advocate Sohail Singh Brar and Moga-based car dealer Pankaj Bansal last week in Behbal Kalan firing case. However, it is the first arrest made by the SIT in Kotkapura firing case since suspended inspector general (IG) Paramraj Singh Umranangal was put behind bars on February 19, 2019.

The court of duty magistrate Harwinder Singh Sindhia sent Pandher to one-day police custody. Pandher is also named an accused in the FIR number 129 registered in 2018 by the SIT in Kotkapura firing case and he was out on bail.

District attorney Rajnish Goyal, who appeared for SIT, told the court that in its investigation report, police had claimed that 10 rounds were fired by five cops in self-defence after protestors attacked them. “But those five cops have already confessed in the court that no shots were fired. Pandher has not submitted those bullets or their empty shells in the armoury; there is no trace of those bullets which are a government property. Even if the bullets were fired, they were not sent to any laboratory for forensic. Pandher had taken these bullets in his possessions and made forged entry in register number 19 to show that these bullets were fired by cops in self-defence. The police remand of the accused is required for further investigation,” he added.