Sikh woman shaves head to protest police inaction

Tribune News Service

Lucknow, September 16

The Uttar Pradesh State Minorities Commission has sought a report within two days from the Jhansi SSP regarding a 44-year-old Sikh woman shaving off her hair to protest police “inaction” in her father’s murder case.

On the written complaint of Puneet Singh, daughter of 82-year-old Yoginder Singh Batra, commission member Parwinder Singh has summoned the Jhansi SSP to Lucknow along with a report of the matter on September 18.

Puneet Singh, who runs a multi-sill centre for deaf and mute in Jhansi, said she took the extreme step of shaving off her hair to put pressure on the police, which was not heeding to her repeated pleas to arrest neighbour Virender Khandelwal and his son, who she suspects of killing her father to grab his property worth Rs 3 crore.

“Following the news appearing in a section of the media, Jhansi SSP Om Prakash Singh paid me a visit today as now he has to present his report before the commission,” she said.

On August 22, Yoginder Singh’s body was found in a pool of blood in the courtyard of his own Sunder Vihar residence under the Navabad police station. Two days later after much pressure, Puneet managed to lodge an FIR under Sections 302, 506 and 34 of the IPC against her neighbour.

Puneet said she suspected the neighbours, once family friends trusted by their father, after they produced a mysterious will in July this year of their deceased mother Narender Kaur, dividing their property into three portions – one portion each to her and her elder sister and one portion for the father.

Her mother, who owned the house, had died in December 2018. Puneet said no one was aware of this will till the neighbours presented it in the court and her family came to know about it through a notice in the newspapers.

Since then there was tension with the neighbours as she had contested the will claiming it to be fake.

“At my father’s request I had quit my job and have been running this centre from his house,” said Puneet.

She accused the local police of taking money from the neighbour. However, Navabad police station IO Pramod Kumar said neither the forensic evidence nor the postmortem report suggested murder or involvement of the neighbour.

The police maintained that they were informed of the death by the neighbour, who is now charged with murder. The house was locked from inside and the police had to break in after calling a large number of neighbours as witness.

“The old man, a diabetic, appears to have fallen down from the terrace. His body was lying in a pool of blood and was sent for postmortem. The whole procedure has been videographed,” said the IO.

The Jhansi police are now sending the forensic report to the State Forensic Science Laboratory in Lucknow for a second opinion.