Inspector’s ‘suicide’ has cops looking for answers

Balwant Garg
Tribune News Service
Faridkot, May 20

The alleged suicide by the incharge of the Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) staff in his office here on Sunday, hours after the mysterious disappearance of a 23-year-old youth from lockup, has the district police scrambling for answers.

While the family members of the youth have been running from pillar to post in his search, the family of the deceased Inspector and his colleagues are trying hard to establish any possible link between the two incidents.

Narinder Singh, 45, incharge of CIA staff in Faridkot, died of an AK-47 wound in his office. Though he was on election duty on Sunday, he took a break to reach office and allegedly ended his life.

An hour earlier, some persons from Sangrahoor village of Faridkot had met the deceased, asking him about the whereabouts of Jaspal Singh, who was allegedly rounded up by Narinder Singh from a gurdwara at Ratti Rori village on Saturday night.

Narinder Singh had rounded up the youth after a complaint on the Rapid Rural Police Response System was received. The complainant had alleged that the youth was harassing his daughter. The youth was staying at a gurdwara with a friend.

On Sunday afternoon, the family members of the youth approached Narinder Singh and asked him about his whereabouts. Gurcharan Singh, maternal uncle of the youth, said Narinder claimed that an unknown person was given custody of the youth around 5 am on Sunday.

The Faridkot police rounded up two friends of the missing youth on Monday, even as the father of the deceased Inspector raised doubts about the circumstances surrounding the death of his son. Dismissing the suicide theory, he suspected murder. SSP Raj Bachan Singh Sandhu said the police were probing both incidents.