Brothers ‘shot dead’ by cops, sarpanch’s husband

The firing took place at around 9 am and as per eye witnesses, the police fired 12 rounds. An eyewitness told The Sunday Express: “Simran Kaur runs a paying guest in the area and the police constables, along with another person, entered her neighbour’s home. They showed their identity and moved inside. It was through the neighbour’s roof that they entered the PG room. Few minutes later, all we heard was continuous sound of firing.”

Five bullets pierced through the brain of both the accused, who died on the spot. While the brothers died, police chased three other persons who were sitting inside the room, outside and fired at them, but they were not hurt. The police managed to arrest two of them — Rajdeep Singh and Bunny — while one of them managed to flee.

Ludhiana Commissioner Pramod Ban, DIG, Ludhiana range, G S Dhillon and SSP, Khanna, Harsh Bansal reached the spot. Dhillon told The Sunday Express that “role of police is under investigation”. An FIR was lodged in the evening at Jamalpur police station against two parties — Gurjit Singh and three constables whom he accompanied for the raid, under sections 302, 34 of IPC and sections of Arms Act.

Dhillon said: “The constables took Gurjit along to identify both accused. Our prime facie investigation says that it is a case of murder. FIR has been registered against three constables of Machhiwara police station and SHO Machhiwara Manjinder Singh has been transferred to Police Lines. It is confirmed that Gurjit was having 0.32 bore pistol and his bullets hit the accused.” Asked if the police also fired, he said: “The firing was there from police side but it is being investigated if the bullets from AK-47 hit the deceased.” Dhillon claimed that the SHO was not present on the spot. The DIG also said that “it was not completely right to take an outsider on police raid.” He added that “sometimes outsiders may be taken for identification purposes. Gurjit was taken along to identify the accused.”

The whole incident was shrouded in mystery as the versions of the police differed in the morning and changed later in the evening. Also, the police refused to reveal the names of the three constables and registered FIR under the name of ‘police party’ from Machhiwara police station. While Commissioner Pramod Ban claimed in morning that a “country-made weapon was recovered from the deceased”, DIG Dhillon said that “no weapon was recovered”.

Both commissioner and DIG initially said on the spot that “the Ludhiana police were not even informed by Khanna police that a raid is being conducted.” When questioned, Dhillon said, “All the aspects are being investigated.”

Family ‘shocked’, demands enquiry Hari Singh, paternal uncle of the victims, told The Sunday Express: “We were informed that the police has shot dead our sons.” He added that “Police are not giving us any details of what exactly happened and why they shot them dead. We demand complete enquiry into these cold-blooded murders done by the police,” he said. He added that “Since the case was registered in August, both hardly came home and stayed outside.”

Meanwhile, the family and villagers of the deceased protested outside Jamalpur police station later in the evening, raising slogans against Ludhiana and Khanna police. They demanded action against police. The protest was on till filing of this report.

Jitender and Harinder were students pursuing graduation at Badungi College, near Samrala. In August, during a fair in village they allegedly molested a girl and later attacked one Satinder Singh. Cases of molestation and attempt to murder were registered against them.

Three cases were registered at Machhiwara and two were also registered at Samrala police station. In relation with FIR number 162 at Machhiwara police station (registered in August for attempt to murder), police took along Gurjit to raid the PG accommodation.