5 cops get life sentences

NEW DELHI, JUNE 4: In an unprecedented judgment, an additional sessions court in Calcutta has sentenced five Punjab policemen to life imprisonment for killing a terrorist and his wife in an encounter in 1993. They have been charged with murder and criminal conspiracy. Earlier, the SC had ordered an inquiry by the CBI into the case and all five policemen were chargesheeted. The SC then directed them to be prosecuted after being placed under suspension.

The SC also issued show-cause notices to the then under-secretary to the Punjab government for saying that the area police “did not know the antecedents and whereabouts of the couple allegedly killed at the hands of Punjab police.” The petition was filed by the SC advocate B.L. Wadhera. The incident had taken place in Calcutta on May 17, 1993, in which Bashir Mohammad alias Lachhmi Singh and Sakina Begum alias Renuka Singh Rani were killed. Bashir was an ex-constable with the Punjab Police who, after leaving the service, had joined the terrorist ranks. The CBI report had “reasonably concluded” that the then SSP, Bhatinda, S.K. Singh, Dy SP, Talwandi, S.S. Chahal, Head Constables Ram Dayal, Sukhjivan Singh and Darshan Singh had “entered into a criminal conspiracy to liquidate the hard-core terrorist Bashir Mohammad and…opened indiscriminate firing in his room in Calcutta in which Bashir and his wife Sakina Begum were in all likelihood killed.”

The CBI findings add, “Thereafter the Punjab Police officials forcibly took away the bodies from the place of occurrence which could not be traced till date.” In a recent verdict given on May 24, 2000, the additional sessions court at Alipore in Calcutta found the five policemen guilty of murder under 302 IPC, and criminal conspiracy. It sentenced them to life imprisonment with Rs 5000 for fine or another term of six months, and three years of rigorous imprisonment and another fine of Rs 1000.