Murder trial unlikely in Yannick case

Nikhil Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, February 9

Even seven months after the death of Burundi national Yannick Nihangaza in Burundi, legal impediments continue to prevent the police here from starting murder trial in the case. Until the Jalandhar Commissionerate receives the post-mortem and the medical reports from Burundi, the police cannot go ahead with filing a supplementary challan to try the accused under Section 302 of the IPC.

The Jalandhar police have sent two reminders to the Burundi embassy to seek Yannick’s medical report, but they have received no reply so far.

ADCP (II) Harpreet Singh Mander confirmed the police wrote to the Burundi embassy seeking Yannick’s post-mortem report and death certificate, but the embassy has not sent any document. Recently, a reminder was also sent in that regard, but no reply has been received yet. Efforts were on to arrest accused Rommy and Rantaj, he added.

“The trial under Section 302 of the IPC will become possible only after the medical report about Yannick’s death from Burundi confirms that he died due to the injuries inflicted on him by nine youth. Investigation will also be conducted under Section 300(3) of the CrPc. Yannick’s father will also be required to join the trial for taking the case to a logical conclusion,” says a legal expert.

Yannick, who remained comatose for two years after the murderous attack on him in Jalandhar on April 22, 2012, died at his home in Burundi on July 1 last year. He was airlifted to Burundi from the Patiala Aviation Club on June 16. He was pursuing an undergraduate course in computer science at Lovely Professional University. He was on his way to a party when he was attacked by a group of nine students in the Defence Colony area. Seven of the nine attackers have been sentenced to 10-year imprisonment, including Sumant Ralhan, Sahildeep, Rommy Uppal, Amandeep Singh, Amarbir Singh Bajwa, Harsh Gosain and Jaswant Singh. Rommy, who was among the seven accused convicted for attempt to murder, obtained 28-day parole on March 6 last year. He was supposed to return to the jail on April 4, but he didn’t.

The police couldn’t issue Look Out Circular (LOC) against Rommy till date because it failed to recover his passport which was mandatory to issue the circular.

One of the accused Jaskaran Singh (alias Jassa), who fled to Australia after the attack, was arrested on May 7, 2014, by the Australian police under Section 12 (1) of the Extradition Act, 1988. The Jalandhar police team went to Australia and extradited Jaskaran to India on September 15 last year. A supplementary challan to try Jassa under Section 307 of the IPC was also recently filed by the police.

Now, Rommy Uppal (son of deceased Superintendent of Police Dharam Singh Uppal) and Rantaj (son of a bus service operator) are on the run.