CBI files chargesheet against AIG STF, 9 other cops in Amritsar in 5-year-old case
Amritsar, October 31
The Central Bureau of Investigation(CBI) has filed a chargesheet against 10 cops of Special Task Force (STF), including its Assistant Inspector General, Border Range, Rachhpal Singh, here.
The chargesheet was filed in the case pertaining to alleged false case registered against Balwinder Singh, alias Kukku, of Tarn Taran by STF in 2017. The STF had claimed to have confiscated 1-kg heroin from his possession.
The chargesheet was filed in the CBI court at Mohali on October 27. Among others who were chargesheeted included inspector Sukhwinder Singh Randhawa (now retired), SI Prabhjit Singh, SI Balwinder Singh, SI Surjit Singh, ASI Kulwinder Singh, ASI Kulvir Singh, ASI Balwant Singh, HC Kulwant Singh and HC Heera Singh. Six of the cops were suspended by the Punjab Police in January 2021.
They were charged under Section 120-B, 342, 192, 197, 211, 218, and 471 of the IPC and under provisions of the NDPS Act.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court had handed over the probe in the case to the CBI in January 2021 after Kukku has approached it while claiming that he was falsely implicated in the case at the behest of his political rivals. He had alleged the he was picked up from the Patti Civil Hospital where he had gone for treatment on August 3, 2017, while he was shown arrested at a naka on August 4, 2017, with 1-kg heorin. The STF had accused him of peddling drugs from Pakistan and later claimed to have arrested three more persons with contraband following his disclosures.
The high court handed over the investigations to the CBI after a probe conducted by the then DGP, Director Bureau of Investigations Parmod Ban. The high court had directed him in November 2019 to file a report after examining and analysing the police diaries, CCTV footage, documents, call details, tower locations of the mobile phones of the petitioner as well as that of the cops concerned. He submitted his report in December 2020.
Advocate Sarabjit Singh Verka, a member of the Punjab Human Rights Organisation, an NGO, pointed out that the chargesheet against senior STF cops is likely to benefit the drug traffickers arrested by it in the past.
