CHNADIGARH: On the lookout for people behind targetted killings that took place in Punjab in 2016 and 2017, including those of RSS leaders Brig Jagdish Gagneja (retd) and Ravinder
Gosain, Punjab Police finally claimed to have cracked the seven murders on November 7 by arresting four persons and saying that Pakistan's ISI was the mastermind.
In these targeted killings, Dera Sacha Sauda followers
Satpal Kumar and his son were murdered in Khanna in Feburary this year, Christian pastor
Sultan Masih of Ludhiana was killed in July, and Gosain was murdered in October. After the arrests, police claimed that one of the accused,
Ramadeep Singh alias
Raman Canadian (28), a resident of Chuharwal in Ludhiana, had confessed to his involvement in the killings. The investigators had claimed that Raman was a shooter who acted at the behest of his ISI handlers. Later, on November 30, the state government while considering possible national and international ramifications of the conspiracy behind targeted killings, decided to to hand over all seven cases of
targeted killings to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
However, the arrest of one of the accused, UK citizen Jagtar Singh
Johal, stirred up a political storm, as opposition parties in Punjab raised questions on his arrest and alleged custodial torture. AAP leader Kanwar Sandhu had said, "I don't find it convincing that a person from the UK who comes here to get married would be involved in such matters."
After the allegations of Johal's custodial torture were made by political parties, the matter was even raised in the House of Commons in the UK. In a radio interview, even British Prime Minister
Theresa May had said that she was concerned about the arrest and would take necessary action.
However, chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh has put his weight behind the force, saying that allegations of Johal's torture were false. He has stuck to the police's theory that killings had beeen carried out with an aim to trigger communal disturbance in Punjab.
NIA
