FARIDKOT: Ten days after the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Punjab Police presented a challan in the 2015 Kotkapura police firing incident before the Judicial Magistrate First Class here, the court on Monday issued notices to former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, Sukhbir Singh Badal, former DGP Sumedh Singh Saini, IGP Paramraj Singh Umranangal, former SSPs Charanjit Singh Sharma and Sukhminder Singh Mann and former DIG Amar Singh Chahal.
The court said as the challan was presented in the absence of the accused on February 24, the ‘notices of the challan’ were being issued to all the accused through SIT officials for March 23. Earlier, after the filing of the challan, the court had kept it for the scrutiny
of documents.
In another case relating to the incident and clash between the protesters and the police on October 14, 2015, the court issued notices of the challan to Gurdeep Singh Pandher, Umranangal, Saini and Mann on Monday.
Interestingly in this case, Pandher, the then Kotkapura SHO, was the complainant. A case under Sections 307 and 353 of the IPC and relevant sections of the Arms Act was registered against unknown persons on the complaint of Pandher. He had accused unknown persons of attacking the police and damaging public property.
Later, the SIT had nominated Pandher as an accused in the case, charging him with breach of trust and forging official records. It is alleged that Pandher, who had access to vital evidence relating to the firing incident, allegedly tampered with it in a bid to implicate some innocent persons.
Pandher had claimed that the cops fired 10 bullets in self-defence after they were attacked by the protesters. He had made an entry in the ‘malkhana’ record regarding handing over of 10 empty cartridges, but these were never deposited, the SIT claimed.