Rights bodies demand CJI’s intervention in Pilibhit encounter
Various human rights organisations today sought immediate intervention of the Supreme Court in the alleged fake encounter in which three Sikh youths were killed in a joint operation by the UP and Punjab Police in Pilibhit area of Uttar Pradesh on December 23.
Khalra Mission Organisation, Punjab Human Rights Organisation and the Manukhi Insaf Sangharsh Committee, Punjab (MISCP), in a communiqué to the Chief Justice of India, alleged that the victims, Varinder Singh of Agwan, Gurwinder Singh of Kalanaur and Jashanpreet Singh of Nikka Shaoura village (all in Gurdaspur district), were killed in a fake encounter by the police.
They urged the CJI to take suo motu action in the encounter. Representatives of these organisations said that initially, the police attributed the attacks at the police stations as cases of tyre burst or LPG cylinder blasts. But after the killing of three youths, the police alleged that Khalistanis were involved in the grenade attacks on police stations.
The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbhandhak Committee (SGPC) had demanded a judicial probe into the matter. It has raised serious questions over the police encounter. They said the sitting MLA of ruling AAP from Payal (Punjab) assembly constituency, Manwinder Singh Giaspura, had also written a letter to the Speaker of Punjab Assembly for an independent investigation. Nevertheless, the Punjab and the UP government were justifying this unlawful act of police forces.
On December 23, a joint team of the Punjab and Uttar Pradesh police killed three suspected terrorists, who were allegedly involved in a grenade attack on a police post in Gurdaspur, in an encounter in Pilibhit’s Puranpur.
