Three years after murder, wife, kin face police action

PK Jaiswar

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, May 23

Over a half and three years after a man went missing mysteriously, the rural police booked his wife and his relative for his abduction and murder on Wednesday. And that too after the Punjab and Haryana High Court (HC) summoned the police and sought the action taken report in the case.

Sarabjit Singh (50), a resident of Mariyal village, had gone missing from his shop located at the Batala–Jalandhar road on December 14, 2015. His decomposed body was found from Buttar village, falling under Mehta police station, four months later. The family of the deceased came to know about this after they read a news report about the recovery of an unclaimed body. Later, they identified him through his shoes, clothes and purse recovered from the spot in April 2016.

Those booked have been identified as Rajbir Kaur of Dabawali village and Gurwinder Singh of Khode Bait village in Gurdaspur. They are yet to be arrested. Sections 364, 302, 201 and 120-B of the IPC have been slapped.

Paramjit Singh, brother of the deceased, informed that on December 14, 2015 he, along with his family, had gone to Kapurthala to attend a marriage function when he received a call from his younger brother that Sarabjit had been missing from his shop and the efforts to trace him did not yield any result. He said they filed a complaint with the police. “In order to trace him, the family members pasted posters at different locations and near religious places but failed to get any information regarding his whereabouts,” said Paramjit.

Meanwhile, when his wife Rajbir Kaur and in-laws did not take any interest in finding him, the family grew suspicious. Later, they found that she had “illicit” relations with her brother-in-law Gurwinder Singh who used to visit her often.

Even after finding his body in April 2016, the Mehta police did not register a murder case while stating that they had to take DNA and viscera reports to ascertain his identity and the reason behind the death. He said the police got the DNA report around an year ago, but still did not proceeded with the FIR registration. He said teh DNA matched with his mother thereby confirmed that it was Sarabjit’s body.

Later, the family approached the high court which sought a report from rural police by May 29. Therefore the police have now registered a case.

Satpal Singh, investigating officer, said raids were on to nab the culprits and further investigation was under way.

Allegations

The family of Sarabjit Singh (50) of Mariyal village blames the police for inaction. It says that after spotting the body in April 2016, the police got conducted DNA tests to establish his identity, but even after getting the report over an year ago, no FIR was registered. The police swung into action only after the family approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court which summoned the police and sought action taken report.