Punjab Govt to HC: take Dheer out of Saini’s probe

A division bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court today adjourned the hearing in the Nayagaon minor rape case to enable the head of Spec...

A division bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court today adjourned the hearing in the Nayagaon minor rape case to enable the head of Special Investigation Team (SIT) to state his views on delinking the part relating to The Indian Express Principal Correspondent Gautam Dheer from the main case.

The division bench, comprising Justice Amar Dutt and Justice Kiran Anand Lall, adjourned the hearing till tomorrow.

Opening his arguments, Punjab Advocate General R S Cheema said that 12 persons had been arrested in connection with the case so far. The first arrest was made on July 20 this year and the last person to be arrested was Dheer, who was arrested on July 28 and was now on bail.

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Referring to the application moved by the counsel for the rape victim’s father, Balkar Singh, fearing that the investigations would be delayed, the AG said that the chargesheet would be filed in about two weeks against the accused already arrested. Thus the apprehension of the petitioner’s counsel that the accused would be out on bail was not correct, he said.

	Arrest condemned

			• NEW DELHI:The International Federation of Journalists today condemned the highhandedness of the Punjab police in the illegal arrest of The Indian Express principal correspondent Gautam Dheer. ‘‘The arbitrary and illegal arrest of Gautam Dheer is a chilling reminder that the high-handed attitude of police towards journalists is not a thing of the past,’’ federation president Christopher Warren said.

He added that if there was any case against Dheer, it would be de-linked from the case for which the SIT was constituted.

The AG further said that the suspension of Harbans Singh Riar, SHO, Kharar, who is the Investigating Officer (IO) of the SIT, was on disciplinary grounds and was in no way related to his role in the SIT’s investigations.

As the SHO/IO had defied the orders of the DGP by not allowing Dheer’s parents to meet him, it was taken as misconduct on his part.

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The state government, he said, was open to an inquiry regarding the Dheer episode by Principal Secretary (Home), the CBI or any retired sessions judge.

The suspended IO was present in the court alongwith DSP to make a statement that a case, if any, connected with Dheer’s arrest could be delinked from the main case. In reply to a query from the court regarding whether the state was objecting to the SIT being headed by IGP Sumedh Singh Saini, the AG stated that they had no objections to his continuation as it was the court which on its own had ordered that the SIT be headed by Saini.