Chandigarh, Dec 21 (PTI) A panel probing the mowing down of a police officer in Haryana’s Nuh during a raid against illegal stone mining in July last year has found that “none of the police officials had any weapon, arm or ammunition at the time of the incident.
The inquiry commission was constituted to look into the circumstances leading to the death of Taoru deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Surender Singh during the raid on July 19 on the illegal miners.
The report of the one-man inquiry commission, headed by retired judge of Punjab and Haryana High Court L N Mittal, was tabled in the Haryana assembly during the winter session, which concluded on Tuesday.
According to the report, Assistant Sub Inspector Sanjay Kumar, constable Amit Kumar and another cop Umesh Kumar were accompanying the DSP at the time of the raid.
“… It is also significant to notice that none of the police officials was having any weapon, arm or ammunition at that time, as stated by ASI Sanjay Kumar, witness No. 1 (one of the three witnesses in the case).
“Even the gunman Umesh Kumar, was not having any weapon, arm or ammunition because he was assigned the said duty on that very day only and before he could get any arm and ammunition issued, DSP asked him and others to accompany him,” the report says.
The police officials could not do anything to catch the dumper occupants or riders of the motorcycle while they were speeding away with their vehicles.
The police officials could not use their vehicle to chase them because the path was strewn with stones unloaded from the speeding dumper, the report says.
According to the commission’s findings, there are statements of three eyewitnesses — ASI Kumar, Constable Kumar, and Umesh Kumar.
Due to the stones on the way, the police party alighted from their vehicle and tried to stop the dumper by running up to the front. They asked the dumper occupants to come down but they refused to do so and rather asked the police officials to get aside failing which they would shoot them with country made pistols which two of them had taken out, says the report detailing the sequence of events on that day.
When the dumper did not stop, police officials started retreating to save themselves. Occupants of the dumper and two persons riding the motorcycle going ahead instigated and prompted the driver to run over the police officials. The driver thereupon accelerated the speed of the dumper with intent to kill the police officials by running them over, says the report.
Sanjay Kumar, Amit Kumar, and Umesh Kumar, saved themselves by jumping aside. Surender Singh also tried to save himself by running aside, but the dumper driver, intentionally with high speed, hit the truck into the DSP and ran over him leading to his death.
“It is accordingly concluded that Surender Singh, DSP, was killed by being intentionally hit and run over by the dumper in the manner stated above while conducting raid to check and curb illegal mining activities.
“However, there was no physical assault, manhandling or scuffle with him before being hit and run over by the dumper,” says the report.
It also said that the culpability or otherwise of the accused persons sent for prosecution by the police relating to this occurrence will be determined by the court(s) concerned.
The commission also made 15 suggestions to prevent reoccurrence of such incidents and to curb illegal mining in that area in future which include: sufficient police force properly armed should be taken while conducting raids or checking relating to illegal mining activities and ‘nakas’ with CCTVs may also be installed for proper and effective checking of illegal mining and transportation of illegally mined material. PTI SUN VSD ZMN
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