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Punjab Police ex-DGP Sumedh Singh Saini booked in 29-year-old kidnapping case
Case registered at Mohali in connection with disappearance of Balwant Singh Multani in 1991
CHANDIGARH: Punjab Police have registered a case against their former chief Sumedh Singh Saini in connection with the disappearance of Balwant Singh Multani in 1991.
Saini was the Chandigarh senior superintendent of police at that time. Multani was picked up by two officers after a terrorist attack on Saini in Chandigarh in which four cops in his security were killed.
The case was registered under Sections 364 (kidnapping or abduction in order to murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), 344 (wrongful confinement), 330 (voluntarily causing hurt to exhort confession) and 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) in Mohali on Wednesday evening.
A complaint about Multani’s kidnapping was lodged by his brother.
A Central Bureau of Investigation probe was initiated in this case against Saini in 2007 on the directions of the Punjab and Haryana high court but it was later quashed by Supreme Court.
When contacted, Saini, who is said to be in Delhi, said: “What comments are required when a chief minister joins hands with anti-national elements to settle personal scores for having him booked for corruption?”
Saini has been in the crosshairs of the Capt Amarinder Singh-led Congress government since the sacrilege cases of 2015 surfaced. He had challenged the Vigilance Bureau’s closure report in the Ludhiana City Centre scam in which Amarinder was an accused.
DENIED ENTRY TO HIMACHAL WITHOUT PASS
Hours after the FIR was registered against Saini and seven other cops at Mataur police station in Mohali district, the former police chief was stopped from entering Himachal Pradesh at the state’s border with Punjab in the wee hours on Thursday as he was not carrying a valid pass for inter-state travel.
Bilaspur superintendent of police (SP) Devakar Sharma said that Saini, accompanied by two persons, in a Toyota Innova arrived at the the Gara-Mora inter-state barrier near Swarghat in the district at 4am without a valid entry pass.
“When police personnel manning the barrier stopped the vehicle, one of the occupants claimed that he was a former Punjab DGP and was headed to Karsog in Mandi district,” Sharma said. A person accompanying him said that he was an inspector-rank officer, while the other was an assistant sub-inspector.
Saini owns an ancestral farmhouse at Karsog.
However, the police personnel at the border told the trio that entry was not allowed without a valid pass. “The guard at the barrier then informed Naina Devi deputy superintendent of police (DSP), who eventually informed me,” said Sharma.
“Later, the former DGP called me up with a request to allow them to enter the state, which was turned town,” the SP added.
(With inputs by Naresh Thakur in Dharamshala)
