The counsel also claimed that Punjab Police did not have any body for 15 days after the alleged encounter on July 29, 1994, and that it was only after Sukhpal was kidnapped and “killed” 15 days later, it managed to produce one. (Representational)“Why did it take you so many years to register an FIR? Were you shielding someone,” the Punjab and Haryana High Court rapped the Punjab government on Friday with these questions for its failure to act in a case against suspended Inspector General (IG) Paramraj Singh Umranangal for allegedly conducting a fake encounter of a civilian. He was suspended on Wednesday after his arrest on February 18 in Behbal Kalan firing case.
In 1994, the police officer and his team had claimed to have killed a wanted militant, Gurnam Singh Bandala, in an encounter, but he was caught alive in 1998, after which the family of one Sukhpal Singh of Kala Afghana village in Gurdaspur claimed that he was the one killed by Umranangal. It was human rights activist Col G S Sandhu (retd) who first connected the dots after that and claimed that the person killed on July 29, 1994, was Sukhpal. Col Sandhu (retd) and Sukhpal’s family pursued the case and ensured that a probe was ordered under then Additional Director General Police J P Virdi in 2007. After a lull in probe due to Virdi’s death in 2010, Sukhpal’s widow Dalbir Kaur and father Jagir Singh approached the High Court for an inquiry by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 2013.
But, an FIR in the matter was registered only in 2016. “It does not take four years to register an FIR. Is there a bigger crime than murder? Were you shielding someone? This behaviour raises a lot of questions. It is beyond common sense. I cannot overlook the suspicious delays in the case of murder. Why did you do nothing,” Justice Arun Monga observed during the hearing of the case, while questioning the state.
In a major embarrassment to the state, the single bench further raised questions over the government decision to represent Umranangal in the case. “How can you represent him in the case when there are allegations against him in person,” the court observed.
The counsel representing the family, Advocate R Kartikeya, on Friday demanded that the investigation be handed over to the CBI. However, the court on Friday observed that everything cannot be referred to the CBI, adding the agency has become like a “neighborhood police station”.
The counsel also claimed that Punjab Police did not have any body for 15 days after the alleged encounter on July 29, 1994, and that it was only after Sukhpal was kidnapped and “killed” 15 days later, it managed to produce one.
The Punjab Police has already told the High Court an FIR was registered in 2016 in the disappearance of Sukhpal and an SIT had been set up to probe the matter. The court was further told the SIT tried to get photos of the body of “alleged Gurnam Singh Bandala” from the July 1994 case file, which was destroyed in September 2002 as per rules, due to which the photo of Sukhpal could not be compared with that of the body.
According to the official response in the case, Umranangal had been associated with the probe earlier, but had said that Bandala had been identified on the basis of the documents recovered from the body. The SIT had concluded that the killing of the person who was identified as Bandala on July 29, 1994, and kidnapping of Sukhpal on August 13 were two different occurrences.
The court was also told that best efforts are being made to trace the accused who had come to the house of Sukhpal in 1994 and abducted him, 15 days after the encounter. Following the hearing on Friday, the court adjourned the matter until April 1 and asked the advocate, representing the family, to assist it with regard to setting-up of a new SIT for a court-monitored probe. The court also observed that the probe could be headed by a retired judge of the High Court, in view of the fact that the case cannot be transferred to the CBI as it is already “overburdened” with the cases.
