Former SSP, DSP among 5 Punjab cops get life term in 32-year-old fake encounter case

A CBI court sentenced five retired Punjab Police officers life imprisonment in a 32-year-old case of fake encounter of seven Tarn Taran youths in 1993.

Former Bathinda SSP Bhupinderjit Singh (61), former DSP Devinder Singh (58), former Inspector Suba Singh (83), and former ASIs Gulbarg Singh (72), and Raghubir Singh (63), were sentenced rigorous imprisonment, Rs 3.50 lakh fine each for criminal conspiracy, murder, destruction of evidence and forgery.

The fine will be given to the families of the deceased as compensation.

The accused were found guilty of staging two encounters in July 1993, where the victims, including three Special Police Officers (SPOs) Shinder Singh, Desa Singh, Sukhdev Singh were illegally picked up, tortured and then shown as killed in encounters.

CBI counsel Anmol Narang said, "It was a case where cops killed cops in two encounters — on the suspicion of a robbery and then cremated their bodies as unknown and unclaimed. The seven victims, all in the age group of 20 to 25 years, were from Rani Villah village in Tarn Taran district and closely related to each other."

On June 27, 1993, Sarhali SHO Gurdev Singh and other officers took SPOs Shinder Singh, Desa Singh, Sukhdev Singh, Balkar Singh, and Daljit Singh into custody from the residence of government contractor Joginder Singh, where they were on duty as gunmen.

They were tortured at Sarhali police station to extract confessions regarding their involvement in a robbery at Sangatpura village. Later, only Daljit Singh was let go.

On July 2, 1993, Sarhali police registered a case claiming that the three SPOs had absconded from duty along with arms issued to them. A week after the abduction of the SPOs, Balkar Singh was also picked from his house at Rani Villah village.

On July 12, 1993, Bhupinderjit Singh (then DSP Goindwal Sahib) and Inspector Gurdev Singh, SHO of Sarhali, reported that while escorting Mangal Singh of Karmuwala village to Gharka village in connection with a dacoity recovery case, their police party came under fire from militants. In the ensuing crossfire, Mangal Singh and three alleged attackers — Desa Singh, Shinder Singh, and Balkar Singh — were killed. Three guns along with used and live rounds were recovered from the deceased, and a case was registered.

Although cops identified the deceased in file, they were cremated as unclaimed. The arms and ammunition recovered in the encounter did not match in the forensics and it was also proved that the deceased were tortured before death.

CBI investigation later disclosed that Sukhdev Singh, who was abducted on June 27, 1993, was later handed over to the Verowal police.

Verowal police also abducted Sarabjit Singh from his village Hansawala, Amritsar, and Harwinder Singh, a resident of Jalabad from Kaithal during June/July 1993. Later on, all three were shown as killed in another encounter.

Sarabjit Singh Verka, counsel for the victim families, said, “The CBI had presented a chargesheet against 10 cops — Bhupinderjit Singh, DSP Goindwal; Inspector Gurdev Singh, SHO Sarhali; SI Gian Chand; ASI Devinder Singh; ASI Gulbarg Singh; Inspector Suba Singh, SHO, Verowal; ASI Jagir Singh, ASI Raghubir Singh, head constable Mohinder Singh and head constable Aroor Singh — in 2002 but the trial of the case remained stayed from 2010-21. During this period, five accused died. The CBI had cited 67 witnesses in this case but 36 died during delayed trial and only 28 deposed in the case.”