Engineer’s murder: Defence alleges cops fired to create empty cartridge

“After the pistol reportedly used in the crime came into to the hands of the police on December 8,2005,a bullet was fired from it by the cops and an empty cartridge was created,” he averred. To justify his allegation,Sukhija argued,“Record of malkhana (official record room) clearly shows tampering of evidence as .32 bore was inserted in its register entry”.

Creating a link to his story,Brandy’s lawyer said,“Pistol’s owner Jagdeep Singh from Amritsar had stated that after police visited his place,he came to police station in Phase VIII,Mohali,on December 8,2005,morning and produced the pistol to then SHO Hakikat Singh. However,pistol was planted by showing that it was recovered from near Dara Studio”. Alleging that “total case property has been planted upon Brandy for vested reasons”,Sukhija reiterated that the bullet jacket extracted from victim’s body does not matched with an empty cartridge shown recovered from the spot”. Referring to the statement of victim’s younger brother Gurinderjit Singh,who is complainant in the case,the defence counsel argued,“Gurinderjit does not claim that he had seen the assailant firing at his brother. Only other witness Karan Kad from Panchkula,who claimed to be passing by the spot on a motorcycle on the fateful night,was not known to Brandy and at night,he cannot identify the fleeing away assailant from a distance under a cover of darkness”.

Sukhija further argued that no identification parade had been conducted in the case. The court fixed February 23 as next date of hearing in the case when Sukhija is likely to conclude the arguments. Earlier,Sukhija had exposed chinks in the prosecution story,which was believed as foolproof,during examination of a Central government ammunition factory’s official,who had confirmed that the jacket (front portion of cartridge) reportedly recovered from Sukhwinderjit’s body does not matched with an empty cartridge reportedly recovered from the spot. Assistant Works Manager of Ammunition Factory,Khadki in Pune,Amit Kumar Meena had submitted that the jacket in question was not manufactured by their factory while admitting that an empty cartridge was their product.