Carjacking suspect’s death:3 Punjab cops booked for culpable homicide

The Hoshiarpur resident had an encounter with cops at a toll plaza near Amritsar in 2020; IG (border range)-led SIT was constituted on the orders of high court

Three assistant sub inspectors (ASIs) of the Punjab Police have been booked for culpable homicide after the Special Investigation Team (SIT), which was constituted to look into the death of a Hoshiarpur resident in police firing near Amritsar in December last year, submitted its report.

The SIT, in its report to Amritsar rural SSP Gulneet Singh Khurana, stated that it was found that the police party used excessive force by opening fire at the victim to stop his SUV. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

As per the daily crime dairy of Amritsar (rural), an FIR was registered on Friday against ASIs Vinod Kumar, Darshan Singh and Surinder Kumar under Sections 304/34 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) of the Indian Penal Code in Jandiala Guru police station.

Inderjit Singh, 40, the victim, was accused of snatching an SUV from a doctor in Haryana’s Ambala district on December 8. A team of the crime investigation agency (CIA) unit of Amritsar police commissionerate that intercepted him had claimed that its members resorted to firing after the 40-year-old tried to run over them at a check-point near the Nijjarpura (or Manawala) toll plaza on the Amritsar-Delhi national highway.

The SIT, headed by the then inspector general of police (border range) SPS Parmar, was constituted after the victim’s family moved the Punjab and Haryana high court in March, terming the encounter as a “murder”. The court had asked the probe team to submit its inquiry report as to why no FIR was registered against the accused policemen so far. The HC bench had also directed sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Vikas Hira to submit a magisterial report in the case on April 20.

The SIT, in its report to Amritsar rural SSP Gulneet Singh Khurana, stated that it was found that the police party used excessive force by opening fire at the victim to stop his SUV. The victim received two bullets and succumbed to the injuries in the hospital, reads the daily crime diary.

Notably, the SIT also got some technical evidence examined by the forensic department. A mobile phone of a farmer, who had shot a video of the incident, was sent for forensic examination for retrieval of the recording that was allegedly deleted by CIA personnel. Besides, footage of the closed-circuit television cameras installed at the toll plaza was also examined.