Chandigarh: A special CBI court, presided over by Judge Rakesh Gupta, on Tuesday sentenced two Punjab Police officials—former SHO Gurbhinder Singh and then ASI Prashotam Singh—to life imprisonment in a 1992 fake encounter case in which two persons were killed at Majitha in Amritsar. Besides, the court has imposed a fine of Rs 2 lakh each on them.
The case dates back to 1992, when Baldev Singh alias Deba and Lakhwinder Singh alias Lakha alias Ford, were killed in what the police claimed was an encounter with terrorists. However, a CBI investigation later revealed that the encounter was staged, and the victims were falsely implicated.
The court acquitted former Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) SS Sidhu and former Inspector Chaman Lal, granting them the benefit of the doubt.The trial lasted for several years, during which multiple accused, including Harbhajan Singh, Mohinder Singh, Parshotam Lal, Mohan Singh, and Jassa Singh, passed away.
However, at the time of the fake encounter, senior police officers had claimed that the two were hardcore terrorists on whom a reward had been announced.
They were involved in hundreds of cases of murder, extortion, robbery, etc. However, in reality one of them was an army jawan and the other was a 16-year-old minor.
Fought for justice till Supreme Court
The investigation in this case was started by the CBI in 1995 on the orders of the Supreme Court. The CBI investigation revealed that Baldev Singh was picked up from his house in village Bhaini on 6 August 1992 by a police party led by SI Mohinder Singh and Harbhajan Singh, then SHO PS Chharta.
Similarly Lakhwinder Singh alias Lakha Ford resident of village Sultanwind was also arrested on 12th September 1992 from his rented house in Preet Nagar Amritsar along with one person named Kulwant Singh by a police party led by SI Gurbinder Singh, then SHO PS Majitha but Kulwant Singh was later released.
Police had committed murder by staging a fake encounter
According to the information, army jawan Baldev Singh of Amritsar district was taken into police custody when he had come on leave. After this, he was killed by staging a fake police encounter. The second case was related to the murder of 16-year-old minor Lakhwinder Singh. He was also kidnapped from his house and killed in the same manner.
But after this, no trace of him was found. The family members kept looking for him for a long time. They fought the case in the court. After this, the Supreme Court put a stay on the investigation of these cases.
The police story was found to be false in the CBI investigation
During investigation, CBI found that police of Police Station Chheharta falsely implicated Deba and Lakha in the murder case of Minister’s son who was murdered on 23.7.1992 and thereafter on 12.9.1992 Chheharta Police showed arrest of Baldev Singh alias Deba in that murder case and on 13.9.1992 both were killed and police fabricated the story that while taking Baldev Singh alias Deba to village Sansara for recovery of arms and ammunition there was an encounter with terrorists.
In this, Baldev Singh alias Deba and an attacker, later identified as Lakhwinder Singh alias Lakha alias Ford, were killed. The CBI concluded that both were picked up, kept in illegal custody and then killed in a fake encounter.
Police’s lies exposed in postmortem
The CBI also found that there were no entries in the log book about the visit of police vehicles to the alleged encounter site shown by the police. The police even showed that the unidentified attacking terrorist killed during the encounter was identified by injured Baldev Singh Deba. However, as per the post-mortem report of Deba, he had died instantly, so the plea of identification by him does not arise.
During the trial, only 19 out of 37 witnesses could testify, as many had passed away over the years. Sarabjit Singh Verka, counsel for the victims’ families, noted that despite the long delay, justice had finally been served.