Mukha encounter case: Police give Rs 15-lakh relief to slain Akali leader’s family

Mukha was killed in July 2015 when a police team fired at his vehicle, claiming it to be a case of mistaken identity; family termed it a fake encounter.

The police department on Tuesday handed over a Rs 15 lakh compensation cheque to the wife of Mukhjit Singh alias Mukha, a Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader killed in an alleged fake encounter in 2015.

Mukhjit Singh alias Mukha (HT file)

Mukha,37, the Akali Dal in-charge of ward 16 in Amritsar, was shot dead by a police team on June 16, 2015, near Mudhal village in the district, when he was coming in his Hyundai i20 car from Verka, where he lived.

The police had later claimed that the cops were looking for gangster Jaggu Bhagwanpuria and Mukha got killed by mistake. The family, however, had termed the incident a fake encounter.

Mukha’s wife Harjeet Kaur had lodged a petition in HC seeking Rs 50 lakh compensation and a government job besides the arrest of the cops involved in the encounter. “The high court in April had directed to give Rs 20 lakh compensation to Mukha’s wife in three months. We have given her a cheque of Rs 15 lakh as Rs 5 lakh has already been given to her,” said Amritsar police commissioner SS Srivastva.

The SIT had booked eight policemen under Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Indian Penal Code.

In March this year, the court framed murder charges against nine policemen, including a sub-inspector (SI) and an ASI, for killing Mukha in ‘fake encounter’. Those charged with murder are SI Ramesh Kumar, ASI Joginder Singh, head constables Jasbir, Sandeep Kumar, Ranbir Singh, Raj Kumar and Rajesh Kumar and constables Satinder Singh and Navjot Singh. They were suspended after murder charges were pressed against them but some of them were reinstated.