Week on, bodies of three victims await final rites

In a tragic incident, a 33-year-old widow, her mother and nine-year-old son had allegedly died by suicide at Bhudan village on the night of December 23.

Their bodies are still lying in the mortuary even after a week as kin have been protesting, seeking arrest of all suspects responsible for their death.

The deceased were identified as Inderpal Kaur, a widow of Bhudan village in Malerkotla, her mother Hardeep Kaur of Gurbakshpura and nine-year-old son Jordan Singh.

The Sandaur police had booked 10 persons, including the mother-in-law of Inderpal Kaur, on the basis of a video recorded by the latter before her alleged death by suicide and arrested three suspects. But kin of the deceased have been demanding arrest of all suspects and addition of murder charges in the case.

On the other hand, residents of Bhudan village, led by office-bearers of the village panchayat, have been holding protests for the cancellation of the FIR. They claimed that some unidentified persons were responsible for the death of the three persons and the video was recorded at some other village at the instigation of some people who are yet to be identified.

The protests by both groups have been led by office-bearers and activists of constituents of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha.

Activists of BKU (Dakaunda), led by Karamjit Singh, had been organising a protest in front of the Sandaur police station to demand immediate arrest of all suspects and addition of murder charges in the case registered for abetment to commit suicide. They have also threatened to bring the bodies, at present kept in police custody at the mortuary of the Civil Hospital, Malerkotla, to the protest site and not allowing anybody to conduct the autopsy and cremation.

As two of the suspects, Bhola Singh of Bhudan and his son Sukhpal Singh, are office-bearers of the BKU (Ugrahan), senior functionaries of the union have joined the protests being held by villagers demanding cancellation of the FIR. Leaders of the BKU (Kadian), BKU (Sidhupur) and BKU (Krantikari) are supporting the protest demanding cancellation of the case against the 10 suspects. They have urged the police to first conduct a fair inquiry and take the decision to arrest the guilty in the case.

The district police, led by SSP Gagan Ajit Singh, had been busy listening to arguments of delegations of both groups. The police had already arrested three suspects, Charanjit, her brother Pammu Singh and nephew Gurpreet Singh. It was after the police conducted raids to arrest Bhola Singh, BKU village unit president, his son Sukhpal and Kaura Singh, block samiti member of Chhiniwal, that farmer unions made efforts to prevent the police from arresting any of the remaining suspects.

Though earlier it seemed that the deceased had consumed some poisonous substance following abetment by the suspects, preliminary investigation revealed that the video accusing 10 suspects was recorded at some unknown place at a distant village and some people were prompting Inderpal Kaur to utter particular names.

While the police are trying to check call details of all four mobile phones being used by Inderpal Kaur, they have identified an e-rickshaw driver who brought her from some other village about 10 pm on December 23, hours before the death of the victims.

Further probe revealed that Inderpal Kaur had sold over five acres of land following the death of her husband Pawandeep. Even the land in the name of their minor son Jordan was also sold. Inderpal Kaur had also executed her will in favour of her brother Kuldeep Singh and a female relative a few months ago.

She had also sold some of her household goods and wheat stock two days before the incident. Senior officials of the police, led by SSP Gagan Ajit Singh, were trying to persuade protesters to perform the last rites of the deceased.