Former SSP, DSP among 5 Punjab cops convicted in 1993 Amritsar fake encounter case

A CBI court has convicted five Punjab police officials, including a former Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) and a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), in a 32-year-old fake encounter case involving the killing of seven youths of Rani Villah village in Amritsar in 1993.

The court convicted former SSP Bhupinderjit Singh, DSP Davinder Singh, Inspector Suba Singh, ASI Gulbarg Singh and ASI Raghbir Singh, all retired, for criminal conspiracy, murder, destruction of evidence, and fabrication of records.

The quantum of sentence will be pronounced on Monday.

Among the seven victims were three Special Police Officers (SPOs) who were picked up, tortured and then shown as killed in two encounters by Tarn Taran police.

The CBI had registered the case in 1999 based on a statement by Narinder Kaur, wife of SPO Shinder Singh, whose body had been cremated as unclaimed.

A police party, led by Sarhali SHO Gurdev Singh, forcibly picked up SPOs Shinder Singh, Desa Singh, Sukhdev Singh and two others, Balkar Singh alias Bobby and Daljit Singh from the house of a government contractor Joginder Singh, where they were on duty as gunmen on June 27, 1993.

They were illegally kept and tortured at Sarhali police station to extract confessions regarding their involvement in a robbery at Sangatpura village.

Joginder Singh tried to secure their release, but only Daljit Singh was let go.

On July 2, 1993, Sarhali police registered a case claiming that the three SPOs had absconded from duty alongwith arms issued to them. Investigation also revealed that a week after the abduction of the SPOs, Balkar Singh alias Kala was also picked from his house at Rani Villah village.

On July 12, 1993, the police, led by Bhupinderjit Singh, then DSP Goindwal Sahib, and Inspector Gurdev Singh, Sarhali SHO, had shown that while taking one Mangal Singh of Karmuwala village to Gharka village for recovery in a dacoity case, the police party was attacked by the militants and during cross-firing, Mangal Singh and three attackers—Desa Singh, Shinder Singh and Balkar Singh—were killed. Three guns along with used and live rounds were shown as recovered from the deceased and a case registered.

Although cops identified the deceased in file but they were cremated as unclaimed. The arms and ammunition recovered in the encounter did not match and anti-mortem injuries also proved that the deceased were tortured before death.

CBI investigation further disclosed that Sukhdev Singh, who was abducted on June 27, 1993, along with SPOs, by Sarhali police was later handed over to the Verowal police.

Verowal police also abducted Sarabjit Singh from his village Hansawala, Amritsar, and Harwinder Singh, resident of Jalabad from Kaithal during June/July 1993 and later on showed all three as killed in another encounter one month later with police party of Verowal police headed by Bhupinderjit Singh, DSP, Goindwal, and Inspector Suba Singh, the then Verowal SHO.

Sarabjit Singh Verka, counsel for the victim families, said, “The CBI had presented chargesheet against Bhupinderjit Singh, DSP Goindwal; Inspector Gurdev Singh, SHO Sarhali; SI Gian Chand; ASI Devinder Singh; ASI Gulbarg Singh; Inspector Suba Singh, SHO, Verowal; ASI Jagir Singh, ASI Raghubir Singh, head constable Mohinder Singh and head constable Aroor Singh in 2002 but the trial of this case remained stayed from 2010-21 and during this period five accused died. The CBI had cited 67 witnesses in this case but 36 witnesses died during delayed trial and only 28 deposed in the case.”

Five convicts Bhupinderjit, Davinder Singh, Suba Singh, Gulbarg and Raghbir Singh were taken into custody and sent to jail.