New Delhi: It’s taken more than three decades, but justice has finally been delivered.
Seven men from Rani Vallah village, including four Special Police Officers (SPOs), were illegally picked up, tortured and killed by the police in two fake encounters in 1993 in Punjab’s Tarn Taran district.
Thirty-two years later, a CBI court in Mohali convicted five retired Punjab Police officers, including a former Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) and a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) for their involvement in the murders.
The officers — former DSP Bhupinderjit Singh who later retired as SSP, former assistant sub-inspector Davinder Singh who retired as DSP, former assistant sub-inspector Gulbarg Singh, former Inspector Suba Singh and former ASI Raghbir Singh — were found guilty of criminal conspiracy, murder, destruction of evidence and fabrication of records.
They have all been taken into custody following the verdict, and await the sentencing.
How it unfolded
An investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) revealed that a police team, led by then-station house officer of Sarhali police station Gurdev Singh, picked up SPOs Shinder Singh, Desa Singh, Sukhdev Singh and two others named Balkar Singh and Daljit Singh from a government contractor’s residence on June 27, 1993. They were found to be falsely implicated in a robbery case.
On July 2, 1993, Sarhali police registered a case against Shinder, Desa and Sukhdev, alleging that they absconded with government-issued weapons.
On July 12, 1993, a police team led by then-DSP Bhupinderjit Singh claimed that while escorting one Mangal Singh to Gharka village for recovery in the dacoity case, they were attacked by militants. In the resulting crossfire, Mangal, Desa, Shinder and Balkar were killed.
The twist came in the form of forensic analysis of the seized weapons, which highlighted significant discrepancies. Post-mortem report confirmed that the victims were tortured before they died, the probe claimed.
On July 28, 1993, three others — Sukhdev, Sarabjit Singh and Harvinder Singh — were killed in a staged encounter involving a police team led by then-DSP Bhupinderjit Singh.
Following a Supreme Court order on December 12, 1996, the case was handed over to CBI in connection with mass cremation of unidentified bodies in Punjab.
Five other accused police officials died during the trial.