Day on, family seeks action against cops, bridge contractor

Ludhiana: A day after the bodies of four Chandigarh men who were missing since January 14 were fished out of the Sirhind Canal, the family of two of them on Friday sought action against officials of Ludhiana police for shoddy investigation and against the company that was building the under-construction bridge from where the car in which the deceased were travelling fell into the canal.
On the night of January 14, Chandigarh-based businessman Pawan Sharma (50), his nephew Jayant Rishi (24), and two of his friends - Prabhjot Nagra (24), a hotel management student in Chandigarh, and Ram Chaudhary (35), a bouncer - had gone missing while they were travelling from Ludhiana to Chandigarh. Initially, the families had alleged murder. However, with no clues in sight, no headway could be made into the case till April 28, when the wreckage of the car they were travelling in was found immersed in the waters of Sirhind Canal near Neelon, 25 km from here. The four bodies were found inside the car, rotting.
Pawan's brother Pankaj said Basti Jodhewal police had misled the investigation. "Earlier, they had claimed that a driver near Kharar had deliever goods to Jayant the next morning, at 7am. However, preliminary reports of the police now say that all of them were dead at 00:10 am on January 15, after falling into the canal from an under-construction bridge," he said.
Pankaj added that the police had also produced a CCTV footage procured from a spot near Kharar and claimed that a car seen in it was the one in which the deceased were travelling. "We are going to approach senior officials," he said. "If it is to be believed that the victims went into the canal from the under construction bridge, then why was there no barrier at the under-construction bridge; it is the responsibility of the authorities or the contractor to install a barrier at the spot," he said.
Pankaj said they will also file a case against the contractor and the company involved in the construction of Southern Bypass, as the four men had died due to their mistake.
Contradictory claims
Brother of deceased Pankaj has alleged that police had at first claimed that the four men had reached Kharar and had on the morning of Jan 15 collected some goods from a man there
Pankaj has claimed that the police are now contradicting their previous claim and have now written in the case report that the car of the deceased fell from an under-construction bridge at Neelon at 12.10am on Jan 15. He has demanded a probe into the "shoddy investigation"
He has said that if the police's latest claim is taken into account, then action should be taken against the firm building the bridge for not keeping a diversion at the start