Jun
8
Police torture: updates
June 8, 2005 | 3 Comments
An Assistant Sub-Inspector has been suspended on charges of torturing a farmer and keeping him in illegal confinement.
ASI Harpreet Singh of Bargari police post was suspended on May 23 by the Faridkot Senior Superintendent of Police for torturing and illegally confining Gurmit Singh, a farmer from Dhilwan Khan village.
The ASI and other police officers stopped Gurmit Singh on the way to his fields and began beating him. When Gurmit Singh’s father arrived and resisted, he was also beaten. The officers took Gurmit Singh to the police post where the ASI tortured him in an attempt to make him give up his land to the ASI’s relatives. Gurmit Singh said that he had a land dispute with his uncle, and that Harpreet Singh is a relative of his uncle.
Gurmit Singh was rescued by village elders and taken to Kotkapura hospital for treatment. The SSP said that a departmental inquiry has been initiated against Harpreet Singh.
In an update to the case of Reshma, a seventeen-year old brick kiln worker who was tortured by police on May 7, a magesterial inquiry has indicted three Patiala police officers.
The inquiry report found Sharanjit Singh, the then SHO of the Sadar police station who was transferred to police lines on May 14, Satnam Singh, chowki in charge of the Sanaur police post, and Bhagwan Singh, ASI, guilty of torturing Reshma.
Political parties including the local units of the BJP and the Bahujan Samaj Party have become involved in the case, organizing protest rallies against the police. On May 18, the Deputy Commissioner ordered the magesterial inquiry.
The Senior Superintendent of Police, AS Rai, said that departmental proceedings have been initiated against the three guilty officers and that they could face dismissal.
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