Murder ruled out, truck driver negligent: Patiala police in court

According to the investigation, Bains, an MBA student at Thapar University, and friend, Gaurav Verma, died when their SUV rammed a stationary truck on the night of September 28, 2010, near Liberty Chowk in Rajpura. Zorawar Singh and Jaskaran Singh sustained injuries in the incident. The four were returning from Chandigarh to Patiala in an Endeavour car when the accident took place.

The police have submitted to the court that as per the investigation, evidence of witness, spot survey and photographs, mechanic reports, medical records and medical opinion, forensic reports, mobile call details and tower locations, they have come to the conclusion that it was not murder but an accident.
It has been submitted that on the fateful night, the truck was parked in the dark on the roadside where there were also shrubs. It has been added that it was due to the truck driver’s negligence that there were no reflectors and parking lights put on the truck and that the truck was also causing hindrance in the movement of traffic.

After the initial investigation, the state police had ruled out murder and stated it to be a case of accident.

The case later went upto the Supreme Court which in December last year directed the Patiala police to register a case under Section 302 (murder) of IPC, keeping in view the report submitted by the then DIG (Crime), Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, in December 2011.

The Supreme Court, while declaring the Punjab Police’s special investigation team as unconstitutional, had directed the Patiala senior superintendent of police to conduct thorough free and fair investigation into the case.