Rs 3.5 lakh, 2-yr ‘struggle’ later, gets back Rs 6,500 phone

Praful Chander Nagpal

Fazilka, June 24

Harpreet Singh Mehami (45), an RTI activist in Jalalabad, is a happy man today. He has finally got back his stolen cellphone after a more than two-and-a-half years’ struggle during which he claims to have received police threats even as he approached the DGP’s office and courts.

Mehami’s Samsung phone worth Rs 6,500 was stolen from his shop in October 2015. But the Jalalabad police refused to register a case. On October 26, he filed a complaint before Judicial Magistrate KD Singla, who ordered that a case be filed.

The police disposed of the case in two days and took no action. Mehami met several senior police officers, but to no avail and, finally, moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2016.

A probe by AIG Crime (Bathinda) indicted SHO Jawant Singh, investigating officer Kashmir Singh and Head Constable Bhajan Singh, and recommended departmental action. 

“Enraged, they tried to cancel the FIR and implicate me in a false case. I met DGP Suresh Arora on July 7, 2017, who ordered a fresh probe,” says Mehami.

In the meantime, Mukhtiar Singh, SP (Detective), Fazilka, found the stolen cellphone with Yovan Kumar, a Class IV employee at the Jalalabad Civil Hospital, which was handed over to Mehami through the courts on June 21.

“I spent about Rs 3.5 lakh on getting justice and faced humiliation too. It was not a fight for a phone but against injustice,” says Mehami, who plans to file a petition for compensation.