Missing police files, doc’s testimony led to cops’ conviction in Tarn Taran staged encounter

Two missing police files, three arms and ammunition reports, cremation of the bodies as unclaimed despite identification in police records, besides the autopsy reports were the key evidences that proved the two encounters in 1993 by the Tarn Taran police as fake and led to the conviction of five Punjab Police retired cops.

A CBI court in Mohali convicted former Bathinda SSP Bhupinderjit Singh and DSP Davinder Singh, Inspector Suba Singh, ASI Gulbarg Singh and ASI Raghubir Singh (all retired) on Friday.

They were found guilty of criminal conspiracy, murder and destruction of evidence and fabrication of records.

Seven persons, including four Special Police officers (SPOs) – Desa Singh, Shinder Singh, Sukhdev Singh and Harwinder Singh, all residents of Rani Vallah village in Amritsar – labelled as “terrorists” were gunned down by the Sarhali and Verowal police in two separate staged encounters in July 1993.

As per the CBI probe Shinder, Desa and Sukhdev were forcibly picked up on June 27, 1993, by the Sarhali police from the residence of government contractor Joginder Singh. A week after the abduction of the SPOs, the Sarhali police Balkar Singh, alias Kala, of Rani Vallah was arrested from his house, it said.

They, along with Mangal Singh, Sarabjit Singh, alias Saba, of Hansawala and Harwinder Singh (SPO) were later shot dead in connection with two FIRs registered on charges of dacoity with the Sarhali and Verowal police in Tarn Taran in June-July 1993. However, the police neither handed over the police files of two cases to the CBI nor produced these before the court and later shown as missing from police records.

The probe further found major discrepancies in the daily diary report (DDR), supplementary reports and reports of the SSP submitted to the CBI regarding the arms and ammunition shown recovered by the police teams in these two encounters. Additional evidence came on record was that the same gun was shown as recovered in two different encounters by two different police stations on different dates.

The CFSL reports of weapons and ammunition also proved that empty shells of the cartridges shown as fired on the police did not match with the weapons recovered.

Apart from this, the autopsy reports and deposition of Dr Kashmir Singh Sohal, the then Senior Medical Officer of Tarn Taran Civil Hospital, confirmed antemortem injuries on the bodies in addition to the gun wounds on head and chest. They were later cremated as unclaimed and unidentified by the police.