Case registered, but no accused named

LUDHIANA: Jagraon police have registered a case of culpable homicide after a 29-year-old farmer died of suspected drug overdose at Swadi Kalan, Sidhwan Bet, on Friday night.
The case was registered on a demand by AAP leader and Dakha MLA H S Phoolka. However, the police are yet to name an accused.

Kuljit Singh was found dead in his fields, after he had ventured out of his home around 9pm. His family had found white-coloured, heroin-like powder, a syringe and a bundle of bidis next to his body around 11.30pm that day.

Kuljit had been hooked to drugs for four years and treated at a deaddiction centre twice during this time, his family said.

Phoolka said the syringe found near the body had been soaked in blood. “Police had not even seized evidence which pointed to a drug overdose and had not registered a case,” he said. “They tried to hush the matter up by filing inquest proceedings and had got a statement from his father, Sukhwinder Singh, that he did not want to get a case registered .”

The AAP leader said he contacted senior police officers, after which Jagraon SP (detective) and DSP reached the spot. “It was immaterial if the family wanted to get a case registered. I had to ask them to book the man who sold drugs to the deceased under Section 304 of the IPC and the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act,” he said.

Jagraon SP (detective) Rupinder Bhardwaj said the police did what the family asked them to. “The accused will be identified and arrested soon,” he said.

Police said the postmortem was conducted by doctors at the civil hospital in Jagraon, and the body had been kept in the mortuary as the family was waiting for the elder brother of the deceased to arrive from Australia. Kuljit is survived by his parents, brother, wife, and two children — a son who studies in Class IV standard and a daughter who is a student of Class II. “The deceased had studied up to Class XII, and was into farming now,” he said.

Lok Insaf Party (LIP) leader and Atam Nagar MLA Simarjit Bains said a piece of foil paper was also found on the spot.