Abhi’s murder: Convicts’ death warrants to be returned to Hoshiarpur Sessions Court

PATIALA:With the Supreme Court staying the execution of death warrants of the killers of Abhi Verma, the Jail Department would now be returning the death warrants to the Sessions Court of Hoshiarpur, which would be re-issuing the death warrants of Jasbir Singh and Vikram in case the Supreme Court’s final order is against the two convicts.

Manish Sirhindi

Tribune News Service

Patiala, October 24

With the Supreme Court staying the execution of death warrants of the killers of Abhi Verma, the Jail Department would now be returning the death warrants to the Sessions Court of Hoshiarpur, which would be re-issuing the death warrants of Jasbir Singh and Vikram in case the Supreme Court’s final order is against the two convicts. The Supreme Court has kept the judgment reserved.

The Jail Authorities had already arranged a hangman, Pawan, from the Meerut jail, who had reached here a few days ago to carry out the execution of Jasbir Singh and Vikram on October 25 at 9 am.

According to jail staffers, the hangman had been arranged after much effort by the Jail Department. He had carried out a trial run on the gallows on the Central Jail premises in the presence of senior jail officials yesterday and today.

Jail Superintendent Bhupinder Singh Virk said with the SC ordering a stay on the execution, the warrants would now be returned to the concerned court and the hangman was likely to be sent back.

“The final decision in this regard will be taken in consultation with the senior authorities of the department once the SC orders were made available to us,” Virk said.

Meanwhile, the SC orders have brought a sigh of relief not only for the convicts but also for the jail staffers as it was in 1989 that the in-house gallows on the premises of the Patiala Central Jail were put to use when two brothers from Dayalgarh village of Sangrur, Gurcharan Singh and Pritam Singh, were hanged to death here. The hanging was performed by hangman Kaloo, who was specially summoned from the Tihar Jail in Delhi for the job.

The two inmates had been put under strict vigil and their movement has been restricted to 32-chakkiyan cell after the death warrants issued by the Hoshiarpur Court were received here a few days ago. They were only being allowed to move out of their cells for one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening. A jail guard had been put outside their cell to keep a round-the-clock watch.