9 months on, skeleton of missing youth found in Muktsar drain

Archit Watts

Muktsar, December 19

A day after arresting Navjot Singh, the alleged mastermind in the kidnapping and killing of 20-year-old Harman Deep Singh of Kotbhai village, the police today recovered a human skeleton from the Chandbhan drain near Bhullar village.

This skeleton is reportedly of 26-year-old Nirmal Singh of Guri Sanghar village, who was allegedly kidnapped from his village on March 19 this year. The family has identified one of his shoes recovered from the spot today.

Had taken suspect to cops

• Nirmal’s family alleged that he was kidnapped by Navjot and they had taken the latter to the police on March 25
• The police immediately released Navjot, which eventually resulted in two murders, claimed Nirmal’s family
• They have sought action against the police for allegedly not carrying out the investigation in a fair manner

However, the identity will be confirmed after conducting a DNA test. Initially, the police had refused to bring out the skeleton, but after a protest from Nirmal’s family, a duty magistrate was called to the spot to perform the legal formalities.

According to sources, the skeleton appeared as though it had been hit on the head with a sharp-edged weapon, dragged by putting a rope around the neck and thereafter tied near the drain. A rusted axe was also recovered from the spot.

Opinderjit Singh Ghuman, Muktsar SSP, said, “The skeleton recovered is of Nirmal Singh as identified by the suspect. Nirmal’s family has also identified a shoe recovered from there as his. However, a DNA test will be done for proper identification.”

Nirmal’s family had been alleging that he was kidnapped by Navjot and they had even taken Navjot to the police on March 25 this year. However, the police did not interrogate him and immediately released him, which eventually resulted in two murders, they claimed. They have sought action against the police for allegedly not carrying out the investigation in a fair manner.

Reportedly, the police had brought one of the suspects arrested in the Harman murder case to the spot where they had dumped the body of Nirmal.

PK Yadav, Faridkot IGP, had on Saturday claimed that the murderers of both Harman and Nirmal were the same and Navjot was the mastermind. Navjot had however fled to Dubai on December 3 after killing Harman, but he was arrested from Lucknow airport on Sunday. He was also produced in a court in Gidderbaha today, which sent him to police custody for eight days.

Navjot is a resident of Dullapur Keri village in Rajasthan and used to stay at his maternal uncle’s residence in Kotbhai village. He is a relative of Nirmal Singh. Nirmal’s sister Amandeep Kaur has said in the past that they had seen the CCTV footage of Nirmal riding a motorcycle with Navjot on the day when he went missing in mysterious circumstances. She has also claimed that her family had that day got a phone call that Nirmal was arrested with narcotics and in another call, someone demanded Rs 2 lakh from them in exchange for information about Nirmal.