Ludhiana: Woman who alleged property grab and made suicide bid dies

LUDHIANA: Puja, a resident of Chawni Mohalla, died at DMCH on Thursday, six days after she attempted suicide. Her kin claimed to have recorded their statements with the police and handed over a copy of her suicide note. However, the police are yet to lodged an FIR.
In the suicide note, the woman has accused 12 persons, including police inspector Bittan Kumar, his councillor father Surinder Atwal and brother Sajan Atwal, for allegedly trying to grab her property. The woman had attempted suicide at her house on July 2 and her kin had lodged a complaint with commissioner of police Rakesh Agarwal on July 3, following which a probe was marked to additional deputy commissioner of police-1 Pragya Jain.
Puja’s mother, Amar Kaur, told the TOI, “I want justice for my daughter. She was being harassed as the accused wanted to grab our property. The police are also not listening to us and harassing us. Cops have recorded our statements.”
Navdeep Sethi, who is the foster brother of Puja, said, “Instead of registering a case, the police are harassing me. As Puja’s mother is an elderly woman and unlettered too, I am pursuing this case. Inspector Bittan Kumar has been threatening to implicate us in different cases. There is also a threat to my life. I have stopped going home out of fear as the cops can anytime take me to the police station to pressurise me.”
“The police are asking us to hand over the original suicide note, but we have submitted a copy. We fear they will destroy the original note. I am so fed up with the system that I also feel like committing suicide. I have also written a suicide note and handed it over to a close friend,” he added.
On Friday, Puja’s relatives met joint commissioner of police (city) Deepak Pareek with a fresh complaint to get an FIR lodged. The complaint states that in 2013 Amar Kaur wanted to get her properties transferred in Puja’s name. Since Amar Kaur is illiterate, she sought help of the accused councillor and realtors. But they fraudulently transferred the properties in the name of accused Ravinder Singh, son-in-law of realtor Gurcharan Singh, and another property in the name of Pardeep Kumar, who is brother-in-law of councillor Surinder Atwal. The family said they were unaware about it till 2019, when they received court summons to vacate the properties. Since then the accused have been harassing Puja and her mother to vacate, the complaint said, adding that the accused threatened to implicate them in false cases. The complaint has also named three stepsisters of Puja and one stepbrother-in-law for grabbing FDs of Amar Kaur.
Inspector Bittan Kumar said the allegations were false, which would be proved in the probe.
Assistant commissioner of police (central) Waryam Singh said, “The kin of Puja have not come to record their statements yet. An FIR will be lodged once the statements are recorded.”