Five-day remand for accused in influencer Kanchan Kumari murder case

Deported from the UAE last night, Amritpal Singh Mehron, the alleged mastermind in the murder of social media influencer Kanchan Kumari, alias Kamal Kaur Bhabhi, was brought to Bathinda on Friday. He was produced in a local court here that sent him to five-day police custody.

Head of a self-styled radical organisation “Qaum De Rakhe” and resident of Mehron village in Moga district, Amritpal was taken into custody by the Bathinda police at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi.

“We have to question him about the involvement of others in the case, besides identifying an unidentified accused. We will ask him how he fled and recover the victim’s phone as well,” the police said.

Meanwhile, counsel for the accused said the court had directed the police to conduct Amritpal’s medical examination every 48 hours and submit a report.

He was declared a proclaimed offender by the court in February this year. He had fled to the UAE after allegedly committing the crime. The police claimed they had already informed the authorities there about him and had made an extradition request through the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.

The badly decomposed body of Kamal (36), a Ludhiana resident belonging to a migrant worker family, was found on the night of June 11 last year in a car parked outside Adesh University at Bhucho Kalan, along the Bathinda-Chandigarh highway.

Three accused, Jaspreet Singh, Nimratjit Singh and Ranjit Singh, have already been arrested and they are in judicial custody. The case was registered against five persons, while one accused remains unidentified.

Meanwhile, Amritpal’s father Baljinder Singh said on Friday that his son was arrested in Sharjah (UAE) on December 29 last year.

“The UAE police allowed him to speak to us occasionally. He last spoke to me four days ago. Today we came to know that the Punjab Police had brought him to Bathinda. However, we have not officially received any information from the police,” he said.

The family was initially Muslim, but the last two generations converted to Sikhism.

Baljinder, a mason by profession, said, “Amritpal never informed us about any crime. He used to engage in social service as a ‘Nihang’. Had my son killed anyone, why would people respect us? People in the village show us a lot of love. Even some politicians came to my residence when Amritpal was booked in this case. They offered us monetary support, which I refused,” he added.