3 booked for beating taxi driver to death

Amritsar, February 1

A taxi driver, identified as Gurjit Singh, was allegedly beaten to death by three other taxi drivers near Saragari Sarai located near the Golden Temple here a few days ago.

Though the incident occurred four days ago, the family came to know about the incident when an unidentified caller informed the family members about the incident as the suspects who had beaten him up told them that he died of cardiac arrest.

The incident was confirmed when the family investigated and stumbled upon a CCTV footage wherein the accused were shown beating up Gurjit Singh. The Division E (Kotwali) police station have registered a murder case against three accused identified as Harvinder Singh Rana of Ramsar Road, Baljnder Singh Nihang of Baba Darshan Singh Avenue, Ghanupur Kale, and Sahib Singh. No arrest was made by the police in this connection.

Charanjit Kaur, wife of the victim, told the police that her husband used to run a taxi outside Saragarhi Sarai near Darbar Sahib. She said on January 27, the accused who also run taxis, called from his mobile phone at around 9pm that Gurjit suffered a heart attack and they were taking him to hospital.

She said around 10 minutes later, they again called informing that he had succumbed on way to hospital and they were bringing back the body to his village. They met them at Dadduana village on the Mehta road and handed over the body and the taxi to them. She said they went to the village and after their daughter returned from Australia, they conducted the last rites of the victim. When they were bathing his body before cremation, they noticed injury marks on his head. But they did not suspect any foul play as they thought that he might have suffered injuries due to fall after heart attack.

She said two days ago, they got a call who refused to disclose his identity and told that Gurjit was thrashed by Harvinder Singh Rana of Ramsar Road, Baljnder Singh Nihang of Baba Darshan Singh Avenue, Ghanupur Kale, and Sahib Singh. She said that they enquired from the taxi stand about this and later scrutinized the CCTV cameras in the area. They got the evidence from the CCTV footage that the trio had thrashed Gurjit with an iron kara (bangle) on his head following which he fell down and got unconscious.

Paramjit Singh, Additional SHO, said a case under Sections 302 and 34 of the IPC was registered and a further probe was on.