New Delhi: A teenager’s death in an alleged police encounter in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district Wednesday has stirred up a hornet’s nest. The deceased’s family has publicly contested the police’s claim that he was killed in an exchange of fire after he shot at them during an escape bid. Instead—the family has alleged—the police’s Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) killed the teenager in custody and then staged a “fake” encounter.
Confirming that Ranjit Singh (19) had been arrested for last week’s killing of Assistant Sub Inspector Gurnam Singh and a Home Guard, Jawan Ashok Kumar, in the Adhian village—which lies at the district’s border with Pakistan—Border Range Deputy Inspector General of Police Sandeep Goel told the press that the youth, who fled police custody Wednesday, was killed during a chase. The police were travelling with the teenager to where he had allegedly hid the weapons used to kill the two police personnel when he hodwinked them.
On the other hand, Ranjit’s uncle Harwinder Singh Malli, speaking to ThePrint over a call, dismissed the police’s version of events, saying, “Our son was killed in police custody, and to hide their illegal work, they have staged the entire encounter.”
Hours after the encounter, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann warned that Pakistan and the sponsors of terrorists, who, he said, wanted to make Punjab the “gateway” to India, would first have to deal with the Punjab Police, the Border Security Forces (BSF), and the Army.
“Three people sponsored by Pakistan were involved in the Gurdaspur incident, in which two of our brave men were martyred, to spread terror and fear among the Punjab Police… One of them who tried shooting died after an encounter,” Mann said Wednesday at the Passing Out Parade (POP) at the Punjab Armed Police (PAP) campus in Jalandhar, addressing the event after Ranjit Singh’s death.
With the family claiming the teenager was picked up from home Tuesday evening—contrary to Mann’s and the DIG’s claims about arrest and escape—the Opposition has now questioned the authenticity of the encounter and the police’s approach in the probe into the 22 February killings.
“Given the grave allegations by the family of 19-year-old Ranjit Singh that this was a staged or fake encounter, the Chief Minister @BhagwantMann and the @DGPPunjabPolice must come forward with a clear and transparent explanation, backed by credible evidence,” Jalandhar Cantt Congress MLA Pargat Singh wrote on his social media page on X. “Ranjit Singh was allegedly picked up from his home and later linked to the killing of two Punjab Police personnel, only to be killed in what is being described as an ‘encounter’.”
He urged the Punjab and Haryana High Court and the Human Rights Commission to take suo motu cognisance to ensure a time-bound judicial probe into Ranjit Singh’s death. “At a time when governance is under serious question, and Punjab appears to be drifting toward a police state, the growing pattern of such encounters warrants an independent and impartial investigation,” Pargat Singh wrote.
His party colleague, Sukhpal Singh Khaira, visited Ranjit Singh’s house in Adhian village and questioned the Punjab Police’s claims about the encounter’s authenticity.
“This is the 42nd doubtful stage-managed encounter in Punjab during the regime of @BhagwantMann & @AamAadmiParty wherein only victims like Ranjit Singh are killed, and the police sustains minor self-inflicted injuries,” Khaira later wrote in an X post.
Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia also reached Singh’s house and sought a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation. Khaira also supported an independent inquiry as a must.
This is the latest in a long line of Punjab Police encounters during weapons recovery over the last year. In this incident, the Punjab Police have claimed that Dorangla Station House Officer Banarsi Das was taking Ranjit Singh to an area where he had allegedly confessed to hiding weapons used in the 22 February killings, when the teenager fled and was later shot dead during a chase and shootout.
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‘Poetic justice’
Last Sunday, the bodies of the two Punjab Police personnel were recovered at the Adhian village checkpost, triggering an investigation that concluded that unidentified assailants shot them dead in the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday. Only Gurnam Singh and Ashok Kumar were at the spot when they were killed, DIG Goel confirmed at Wednesday’s press conference.
The police checkpost, approximately two kilometres from the international border, is quite close to the BSF outpost.
The police probe into the 22 February killings had revealed three possible suspects, including Ranjit Singh and Dilawar Singh, both residents of the village, and 21-year-old Inderjit Singh from Ali Nangal village, DIG Goel said Wednesday. Some foreign handlers lured the trio with the promise of money—Rs two to four lakh in total—and Dilawar had received Rs 3,000 out of his Rs 20,000 share, the DIG added.
“Ranjit Singh and Dilawar Singh were found to be in touch with Pakistan-based ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] handlers and were carrying out their instructions,” Goel said. “On their instructions, they carried out a recce of the police check post—as they were from the same village—and carried out the killings.”
The DIG further said that after his arrest, Ranjit Singh confessed that he kept one of the weapons used in the killings in an area under the jurisdiction of Behrampur police station, so Dorangla Station House Officer Banarsi Das was taking him to the spot for its recovery.
On the way, however, the police vehicle turned turtle near Galhri village due to dense fog and a damaged road, said Goel, adding that Ranjit Singh used the opportunity to successfully escape.
SHO Das promptly informed his senior officers, including the senior superintendent of police, who raised an alert in the region and set up checkpoints across the Gurdaspur district. Besides, the SSP shared relevant information, including the accused’s picture and details of his clothing, with different teams.
Around 3 am, a CIA team at a police checkpost near Purana Shala on Mukerian-Gurdaspur Road allegedly saw Ranjit Singh on a bike, Goel said, adding that the teenager again attempted to flee, turning his bike away from the officers. But it skidded.
“…to flee the police, he fired, unprovoked, at the police party. In self-defence, the police team fired back at him, leaving him injured. He was taken to the nearest civil hospital, where he was declared dead,” Goel said, adding that the CIA in charge, Inspector Gurmeet Singh, was injured during the exchange of fire, and the .32 bore pistol used by Ranjit has since been recovered from the spot.
The account of Ranjit’s family runs completely contrary to the police’s version.
Malli told ThePrint that a team of police personnel picked his nephew from his house in Adhian village around 4 pm Tuesday. “They returned at 10 pm to collect all CCTV cameras in the village—including the village Gurdwara, so that their plan does not get recorded,” Malli told ThePrint over a call. He said that the Dorangla SHO Das called him later, around 1.30 am on the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday, and asked him to send someone to the police station to take his nephew home.
“We were told to go to the police station to bring Ranjit home. The SHO had called me and told me that he was innocent and would be released in the morning to the family,” Malli said. “Before we could go to the police station and bring him back, I saw the news on local channels—that Ranjit had been shot dead.”
He alleged, “The CIA team, which arrested our son, killed him in police custody, and later framed an encounter to hide their brutality and abuse of the process.”
The uncle said the teenager had completed his school education in Gurdaspur and had just enrolled in a government college to get a Bachelor of Arts degree. His father has been working as a driver in Saudi Arabia for a decade now and supporting the family in Adhian village.
Khaira wrote in his post, “Victim Ranjit Singh was taken from home by the police at 4 pm on Tuesday in the presence of his family and villagers. If he was guilty, would he be waiting at home for the police to arrest him? Ranjit had no criminal past and was a disciplined young boy. If the police did nothing wrong, then why did they take away all DVRs and broke CCTV cameras of his village 10 pm that night.”
He also posed other questions.
“If the police theory is to be believed, why only policemen were injured when the police jeep overturned why wasn’t Ranjit injured despite the fact he was handcuffed? How did he manage to flee police custody despite being handcuffed and how did he arrange a motorcycle and gun in pitch dark at 3am onwards? If Ranjit was an ISI agent why was he being taken in one police jeep, why not more force and why in the middle of the night? On one hand we allege that ISI supplies weapons drugs money and targets important people and vital locations of India, then how can a killing of a Home Guard Jawan & ASI of police destabilise a powerful country like India?” Khaira asked in his post.
When asked in the press conference about a bike and a weapon appearing in the chain of events within hours of Ranjit Singh fleeing police custody, DIG Goel insisted that the police probe had been “professional” and “transparent”. “One accused who was working in tandem with an ISI handler in Pakistan, [and he] worked to create unrest on a task assigned by the handlers has been met with poetic justice,” he added.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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