Escape Bollywood style
From Chander Parkash
Tribune News Service

MUKTSAR, Oct 13 — Smuggler on parole kills a man, throws acid on the dead man's face to conceal identity, places parole papers in the pocket of the deceased and changes his clothes and shoes with his own to fool the police into believing that he (smuggler) is dead so that he can escape punishment.

This is not a scene from a Bollywood movie. Baldev Singh of Attari village in Amritsar district did all this while serving a sentence in Central Jail, Amritsar, under the NDPS Act.

Police sources said on August 30, 1998, the body was found on the outskirts of Rahudian Wali village. On a closer examination, it was found that one of the shoes was on the wrong foot. The shirt seams were also inside out.

The police got suspicious. Further investigations showed Baldev Singh had killed an autorickshaw driver Harish Kumar, disfigured his face, changed his clothes and shoes and placed parole papers in one of the pockets to deceive the police.

Mr Kuldip Singh SSP, talking to TNS, said the brother of Baldev Singh, who was brought from Gharinda village is a police constable who promptly identified the body as his brother's.

The investigations did not stop at this point. During the same period it was found that Harish Kumar was missing since August 29.

His autorickshaw was also untraceable. Meanwhile, the fingerprints from the body did not match with those of Baldev Singh as shown in the records of the Amritsar jail.

He said it was found that Baldev Singh, who came here on parole on August 24, decided to hire Harish Kumar's autorickshaw and then kill him with the help of his friend Bakhshish Singh. The family members of Baldev Singh were also involved in the conspiracy.

The SSP said that the autorickshaw of the deceased had been found abandoned in Rudrapur (UP), which indicated that the accused had fled to the Terai region.

A case had been registered.