LUDHIANA: The
mysterious death of 23-year-old Ludhiana youth Jivanjyot Singh is not an isolated case in which the suspected cause of death has oscillated between drug overdose and murder.
Nearly four years ago, on June 22, 2014, 24-year-old Abhishek Banerjee, the son of a city-based doctor, was found dead in his luxury car near Government College for Boys. At that time too, given the number of injection marks on Abhishek’s body, police had suspected his death to be a cause of drug overdose, but the family alleged murder.
Most recently, on February 26 this year,
Navjot Singh (28), a resident of Sector 32, Chandigarh Road, was found dead in his car in Jhande village. Navjot owned a factory at Focal Point. At that time, police had said they had found marks of injections on the arms of the deceased, so they suspected he could have died of a drug overdose. The SHO of Sadar police station, inspector Sukhdev Singh Brar, said in many such cases, family members did not expect one of their own to die of drug abuse. “Some of them don’t even know their children are hooked to drugs,” he said.
In case of Abhishek’s death, police are yet to make any headway in the case. They had registered a case under Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of Indian Penal Code against unidentified accused in April 2015, on the directions by the director bureau of investigation. “Even as the SIT probe suggested registration of FIR against two persons, this was not implemented. About four months ago, police requested the trial court to cancel the FIR. The court rejected the request and ordered a reinvestigation into the murder of my son. I have filed a plea in the high court for a CBI probe into the murder of my son. The hearing is on May 17”, said Dr A K Banerjee, father of the deceased.
A police officer who did not wish to be named said it was not all black and white. “In some cases, the drug overdose can be forced. As in sombody could have given an overdose of a narcotic to a deceased to settle an enmity or for some other reason,” said the officer.
In Another such cae, on September 17 last year, 30-year-old
Sandeep Singh was found dead in his Maruti Zen Estelo car in Dugri. He was not wearing a shirt and his pants had been pulled down to his knees. Again, police suspected drug overdose, while the family called it murder.
On September 24, police had booked three of Sandeep’s friends — Bittu of Model Town, Umesh Paswan of Jawaddi Kalan and Ranjit Kumar of
Pakhowal Road — under the sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of IPC for allegedly giving him an injection leading to his death.
THEY ARE STILL MYSTERIES
June 22, 2014 | Abhishek Banerjee (24), son of a city-based doctor, was found dead in his luxury car near Government College for Boys. At that time too, given the number of injection marks on Abhishek’s body, police had suspected his death to be a cause of drug overdose, but the family alleged murder
September 17, 2017 | Sandeep Singh, 30, was found dead in his Maruti Zen Estelo car in Dugri. He was not wearing a shirt and his pants had been pulled down to his knees. Again, police suspected drug overdose, while the family called it murder
February 26, 2018 | Navjot Singh (28), a resident of Sector 32, Chandigarh Road, was found dead in his car in Jhande village. Navjot owned a factory at Focal Point. At that time, police had said they had found marks of injections on the arms of the deceased, so they suspected he could have died of a drug overdose
‘THEY DIED YOUNG’
A police official said most of the addicts who had died of drug overdose in vehicles were youth aged between 20 and 30. They added that in most of such cases, either syringes were recovered from the vehicle, or the deceased had marks of using injections regularly.
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