Attack on DSP jails, police to quiz jailed ex-Cong councillor

In bid to get to the actual mastermind who hatched the murderous attack on deputy superintendent of police (jails) Vikramjeet Panthe on June 27, the commissionerate police are set to bring jailed former Congress councillor Sukhmeet Singh Deputy and his accomplice Jatinder Mand from Patiala and Kapurthala prisons respectively for interrogation in the coming days.

In bid to get to the actual mastermind who hatched the murderous attack on deputy superintendent of police (jails) Vikramjeet Panthe on June 27, the commissionerate police are set to bring jailed former Congress councillor Sukhmeet Singh Deputy and his accomplice Jatinder Mand from Patiala and Kapurthala prisons respectively for interrogation in the coming days.

Sources in the police department said DSP Panthe after receiving a call from an unknown number on July 6 had given the names of the former Congress councilor and Mand besides another person lodged in a Bathinda jail.

Sources said Panthe had revealed names to the police on the same day but there has been a delay in bringing the two to the city. It has been learnt that four to five phone recordings were also handed over to city police about the mastermind.

Deputy and five of his accomplices were sentenced to life imprisonment in August 2011 in a kidnapping case in which they had allegedly extorted a ransom of `1 crore from a real estate developer from Mota Singh Nagar of the city in 2008. They had kidnapped Gagan, the son of city-based developer and film distributor Subash Nanda from a nearby Jandiala village.

Deputy was transferred to the Patiala jail from the Kapurthala Modern Jail in November 2013.

After a few days, the police cracked the case and arrested the Congress leader and his accomplices with the ransom money.

Sources maintain that a high-profile drug nexus is being run in the Kapurthala, Patiala and Bathinda jails in connivance with corrupt prison officials and a particular lobby did not want Panthe to work in the former jail due to his “upright approach” to job, as a result of which it was difficult for them to move drugs freely.

Sources said Panthe had registered cases against undertrials who were either found using mobile, using drugs or sent them to the isolated cells (also known as chakkis) as punishment.

It has been learnt that the situation has become alarming as some criminals have been plotting attacks on the jail staff in connivance with some corrupt prison officials.

When contacted for comments, a disheartened Panthe said, “I have no personal enmity with anyone. The real culprits should be arrested as soon as possible.”
On July 6, the police had arrested gangsters Sukhwinder Singh ‘Bhau’, Sukhi Bidhipuria and Fateh Singh, after a two-hour encounter in the city. The police claimed that Bidhipuria along with Fateh had attacked DSP Panthe. The trio has been lodged in the Kapurthala jail.