HC upholds conviction of 4 for Gikki murder

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 16

More than eight years after Gurkirat Sekhon, aka Gikki, was shot dead in Jalandhar, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today upheld the conviction and life term awarded to four convicts by the trial court.

Gikki was allegedly shot in front of his father on April 21, 2011. The case came as an embarrassment for the then SAD-led government as the young hotelier from Jalandhar, Gikki, was allegedly targeted by former MLA Sarabjit Makkar’s nephew Ramsimran Singh Makkar, aka Prince Makkar, also an SAD councillor.

The four, Prince Makkar, Amardeep Singh (alias Sunny), Jasdeep Singh Jassu and Amarpreet Singh Narula, had moved the HC after a Gurdaspur court sentenced them to life imprisonment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and common intention under Sections 304(1) and 34 of the IPC in August 2015.

The case had been pending with the HC since then. But the Bench of Justice Rajiv Sharma and Justice Harinder Singh Sidhu decided the case after hearing the matter in one go for more than two hours. Pronouncing the verdict in the open court, Justice Sharma’s Bench dismissed the appeals.

The prosecution had claimed that Rajbir Singh Sekhon saw his son Gikki standing near the main road, along with one Sukhdev Singh, after he reached Baba Rasoi Dhaba in Jalandhar’s Model Town around 12.45 am on the intervening night of April 20 and 21, 2011.

At that time, accused Amarpreet Singh, along with Amardeep Singh, Ramsimran Singh Makkar and Jasdeep Singh, were also “present there and were angry with his son”.

The prosecution claimed Amardeep Singh took out his revolver and started fighting with Gikki. As Amarpreet Singh and Jasdeep Singh instigated, Makkar took out his revolver and fired Gikki in the back. He did not live long to reach the hospital. Prince Makkar was Gikki’s closest friend since childhood and had only lately been out of touch as he got busy in his political career.

Gruesome killing

• Night of April 20-21, 2011: Gikki shot in Jalandhar’s Model Town around 12.45 am
• April 21, 2011: FIR filed under various sections of the IPC and the Arms Act. The trial was later shifted out to Gurdaspur on the HC orders.