File report on status of probe: HC to Hisar SSP

CHANDIGARH: Less than three months after a petition alleging human sacrifice in Rampal’s Satlok Ashram was filed before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the Bench today directed the Hisar Senior Superintendent of Police to file a status report on the investigation so far.

A view of Rampal’s Satlok Ashram at Barwala. File photo

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 24

Less than three months after a petition alleging human sacrifice in Rampal’s Satlok Ashram was filed before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the Bench today directed the Hisar Senior Superintendent of Police to file a status report on the investigation so far.

He has also been directed to inform the Bench on persons associated by the police in the investigation. The directions came on a petition filed by Hari Kesh of Jind’s Dablan village. He was seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the death of his 24-year-old son Randhir Singh whose body was allegedly found inside Satlok Ashram in August.

Apprehending human sacrifice, his counsel argued it was apparently a case of illegal activities inside the ashram under the patronage of the local police. He claimed Randhir died inside the ashram and his autopsy confirmed strangulation as cause of death, but the local police did not register a case to look into the circumstances of the unnatural death.

As the case came up for resumed hearing, the state counsel informed the Bench of Justice Ritu Bahri that as per the report the cause of death is asphyxia due to hanging. Referring to the chemical examiner’s report, he said poison was not found in the victim’s body. The case will now come up for hearing on January 15.

The petitioner had earlier added: “Either the local police were afraid of or under the influence of the ashram that no action was taken in the death of my son even after representations to the SSP,” he said. Going into the background, he said his son was called to the ashram on August 19. The next day he was found dead.

One Suresh of Jodhpur district in Rajasthan had also lodged a DDR on June 10, 2013, at Barwala police station regarding the death of his brother Jagdish Singh inside the ashram.

In the petition filed in September, Hari Kesh informed the court his son had told him time and again that tantrik activities were conducted in the ashram. He also claimed people had vanished from the ashram.