CHANDIGARH: What was a Punjab police Gypsy doing in Panchkula on August 25 last year, the day that Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim was convicted of rape, leading to widespread violence? There is a cloud of mystery around this unanswered question.
Police officials in neither Punjab nor Haryana seem to know what it was doing in a city of Haryana when it was clearly stated that it was meant to be used only in Punjab. Strangely enough this Punjab government vehicle even had a fake Haryana number plate - HR99 ZM(T) 1271 – when it was recovered after the violence. Why did an official police vehicle need a fake number plate and that too of another state? Again, senior police officials are clueless.
When TOI started investigating this case, we found that the Punjab police had allotted the Gypsy to one Harsh Kumar, a dera follower living between Zirakpur in Mohali and Delhi. TOI spoke to Harsh, who said he had not even seen the vehicle. Panchkula police had arrested eight Punjab cops in dera head’s security for their alleged conspiracy to free him after his conviction by a CBI court on August 25, but it is not clear if they were using the vehicle. Five of Haryana police’s own cops were also arrested on the same charges.
An official letter from the Punjab DGP (intelligence) office to Panchkula deputy commissioner of police (DCP) on June 1 says that the white Gypsy, with registration number PB65 AK 7180, “recovered by Panchkula police had been deployed with Harsh Kumar r/o Flat No. 103, Chandigarh Enclave, Zirakpur, (SAS Nagar), Punjab.” TOI has a copy of the letter.
Vehicle was abandoned with fake number plate
The letter further says Harsh is an office-bearer of the Punjab unit of the dera and the vehicle was issued to him “for providing security to DSS leaders /office bearers during their stay/movements in the State of Punjab in view of threat perception/inputs received from ministry of home affairs (MHA), GoI especially in the wake of the Maur blast (in
Bathinda district) on 31.01.2017”.
The letter added that the officers were “not aware of the circumstances under which this vehicle reached Panchkula on 25.08.2017, nor is it aware of the (i) occupants/driver/users of the said vehicle on 25.08.2017, the day verdict was delivered in case (conviction of Dera Sacha Sauda head Ram Rahim Singh).”
The June 1 letter was written in response to queries raised by Panchkula police on November 16 last year.
A senior Punjab police officer said, “We have got the Gypsy back two days ago through the court. We had issued the vehicle to Harsh. It is for the
Haryana police to call Harsh and ask him the details. We have been providing them full cooperation.”
Panchkula commissioner of police, ADGP AS Chawla, told TOI, “If now the Punjab police say they had allotted the Gypsy to Harsh Kumar, why did
they not tell us earlier? We had been asking them since last year. I will soon review this case.”
When TOI contacted Harsh, he said, “Punjab police had not given the Gypsy to me but to the Dera Sacha Sauda head as they had provided five more cops (earlier there were three cops) for Guruji’s security just before last year’s (Punjab) assembly elections in February.”
He added, “Me and Jagjeet Singh used to look after political affairs of the Dera. We used to meet the CM, politicians and DGPs but we were not provided any security.”
He even claimed that he had not seen the Gypsy and added that he had sent a person to Punjab intelligence office in Mohali, who picked up the Gypsy and drove it straight to Sirsa dera headquarters. To another question, Harsh replied he did not exactly know who used the Gypsy since both Jagjeet and he never travelled in it.
Interestingly, the flat at Chandigarh Enclave was the same that the builder Ajayveer Sehgal had on February 28 registered an FIR in Sector 5 police station at Panchkula. He had submitted in his complaint, “Chamkaur Singh (Dera follower) also pressurized the complainant (Sehgal) to donate flat No. GF-103, Avalon Tower in his housing project namely ‘Chandigarh Enclave’ to Dera Sacha Sauda because of the help provided by Baba Ram Rahim. The flat was registered in the name of Dera Sacha Sauda on 31.08.2010.”
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