Moga DSP murder case: Three convicts get consecutive life terms

The court has also ordered the convicts to pay a fine of Rs 1 lakh each, of which Rs 80,000 each would be given to the family of the two victims.

The three main convicts in the murder of Moga DSP Balraj Singh Gill and a woman, Monica Kapila, were sentenced to two consecutive life imprisonments on Friday.

Umesh Kadra, Pritpal Singh and Harvinder Singh were Wednesday convicted under Section 302 (murder) of the IPC.

On Friday, the Ludhiana court of Additional Session Judge Priya Sood sentenced all three to two consecutive life terms for the double murder. “The consecutive life imprisonments is approximately 40 years in jail for each of the three convicts,” said the prosecution advocate Harpreet Sandhu.

[related-post]

Story continues below this ad

The three will also serve another 17 years in jail for conviction under sections 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471, and 201 (destroying evidences), 120-B (conspiracy) of the IPC. Their accomplices, Hassanjit Singh and Ravinder Singh, convicted for conspiracy and forgery, were sentenced to seven years of imprisonment while the third accomplice, Davinder Singh, was awarded five years of imprisonment.

The court has also ordered the convicts to pay a fine of Rs 1 lakh each, of which Rs 80,000 each would be given to the family of the two victims.

Gill and Kapila were found brutally murdered at an isolated farmhouse on Hambran Road in Ludhiana on February 1, 2012.

The DSP’s father Kashmira Singh Gill was present in the court Friday when the punishment was pronounced. Gill had moved an application in the court and sought death penalty for the accused. “Right now I have no reaction to this judgement. I am happy that my son ‘s murderers have been convicted and have been sent behind bars but it was a brutal murder. He was killed mercilessly and so I have appealed for the death penalty. I am yet to ponder over if I would move higher court seeking stricter punishment,” said Gill.

Story continues below this ad

The Ludhiana police took two months to crack the case with the arrest of six accused who claimed that they had entered the farmhouse with the motive of burglary.

Police, too, had claimed that the accused were not aware of Gill’s identity. The accused even changed the number plates of two vehicles — Chevrolet Optra that was being driven by the DSP and the Innova driven by the woman — that were recovered later from different spots.

Blood stains were also found inside the car, which had deepened the mystery.

Divya Goyal

Divya Goyal is a Principal Correspondent with The Indian Express, based in Punjab. Her interest lies in exploring both news and feature stories, with an effort to reflect human interest at the heart of each piece. She writes on gender issues, education, politics, Sikh diaspora, heritage, the Partition among other subjects. She has also extensively covered issues of minority communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan. She also explores the legacy of India's partition and distinct stories from both West and East Punjab. She is a gold medalist from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, the most revered government institute for media studies in India, from where she pursued English Journalism (Print). Her research work on “Role of micro-blogging platform Twitter in content generation in newspapers” had won accolades at IIMC. She had started her career in print journalism with Hindustan Times before switching to The Indian Express in 2012. Her investigative report in 2019 on gender disparity while treating women drug addicts in Punjab won her the Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitivity in 2020. She won another Laadli for her ground report on the struggle of two girls who ride a boat to reach their school in the border village of Punjab. ... Read More

Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram