Anti-drug panel members thrash youth to death in Bathinda's Ghumman Kalan

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, October 22

To stop drug addiction, anti-drug committees, formed by villagers at their own level, have now started taking law into their own hands. One such case has come to light in Ghumman Kalan in Bathinda.

Members of this committee not only kidnapped a young man on the suspicion of drug smuggling, but also brutally beat him to death and threw his body in a drain. The Bathinda police, on the complaint of the wife of the deceased youth, have registered a case against 14 people, including the head of the anti-addiction committee of village Ghumman Kalan under various sections, including murder, kidnapping, in which two accused members have been arrested. Police teams are conducting raids to arrest the remaining 12 named members.

Apart from the car used in this case, the police have recovered the motorcycle and mobile phone of the deceased youth. The body has also been recovered from the drain and kept in the mortuary of the civil hospital for post-mortem. The police have taken both accused on police remand.

Giving information about the case in a press conference on Sunday, SSP Gulneet Singh Khurana said that Gurpreet Kaur of village Kothe Mauraki Maharaj in Bathinda district had given a complaint to the City Rampura police station on October 16, saying that her husband Daljinder Singh had gone to Rampura for his work around 6 pm on October 10, but had not returned home even after six days. Gurpreet Kaur had expressed apprehension that her husband had been kidnapped by some people.

The SSP said the investigation revealed that anti-narcotics committee members suspected the deceased Daljinder Singh alias Noor of being involved in drug smuggling and selling drugs in the village and the surrounding areas. With the intention of killing him, they kidnapped him from Rampura Phool and took him to the fields of accused Nardev Singh alias Gaggi and beat him brutally with sticks, iron rods, belts etc, leading to Daljinder Singh death.

SSP said the police detained and interrogated Nardev Singh alias Gaggi and Gurpreet Singh alias Dhatu and they confessed to the crime.