In quirk fate of des­tiny, made pos­si­ble by the per­se­ver­ance of a vic­tim fam­ily and their lawyer, the man who pub­lished posters of Sikh free­dom-fight­ers and got them posted on the walls of the In­ter-State Bus Ter­mi­nal in Delhi, the New Delhi Rail­way sta­tion and the Delhi Air­port, now faces the ig­nominy of his own poster adorn­ing the walls of Am­rit­sar by Sikh bod­ies. There are posters ga­lore on so­cial me­dia call­ing for his ar­rest and the Pun­jab Po­lice is hound­ing him at his known and lesser-known hide­outs in Pun­jab, Hi­machal Pradesh and Delhi. Sikh bod­ies and ac­tivists are giv­ing it back to him and the Pun­jab Po­lice in the same coin. To­day, 12 Sep­tem­ber 2020, the Ju­di­cial Mag­is­trate of Mo­hali has is­sued non-bail­able ar­rest war­rants of the ac­cused Sumedh Singh Saini. So­cial ac­tivist lawyers have writ­ten let­ters seek­ing red-cor­ner no­tices so that he does not leave the coun­try.

TAK­ING A LEAF OUT OF THE BOOK OF SI­MON WISEN­THALL AND THE NUREM­BERG TRI­ALS, the fam­ily of Bal­want Singh Mul­tani who was ex­tra­ju­di­cially killed 29 years ago, and their lawyer Pradeep Singh Virk have done great ser­vice to the cause of jus­tice in con­sis­tently per­suad­ing the case for three decades and more against all odds.

Ju­di­cial Mag­is­trate Ravtesh In­der­jit Singh in the case of State Vs. Sumedh Saini. FIR No. 77 date 06.05.2020. Po­lice Sta­tion Mat­taur, ac­knowl­edged the pros­e­cu­tion plea that there is “no stay re­gard­ing the ar­rest of ac­cused Sumedh Saini in the pre­sent FIR and an­tic­i­pa­tory bail ap­pli­ca­tion moved by ac­cused be­fore Hon’ble High Court has al­ready been dis­missed.”

The duty mag­is­trate also took cog­ni­sance of the fact that the DDRs of var­i­ous po­lice sta­tions at Hauz Khas, Delhi, Shimla Sadar, Chownki Pan­gana, HP, Po­lice Sta­tion North and Sec­tor 19, Chandi­garh, and Po­lice Sta­tion Tanda, Pun­jab could not be ex­e­cuted for lack of ar­rest war­rants.

Hence the court con­cluded that “There­fore, the ap­pli­ca­tion in hand is al­lowed for fa­cil­i­tat­ing the ar­rest of ac­cused Sumedh Singh Saini who is evad­ing ar­rest. Ar­rest war­rants against the ac­cused Sumedh Singh Saini are is­sued for 25.09.2020.”

As soon as it be­came clear that Sumedh Singh Saini’s bail plea has been re­jected by the Pun­jab and Haryana High Court, ac­tivists of the Dal Khalsa lead­ers and ac­tivists splashed posters of his be­ing WANTED all across Am­rit­sar, Gur­daspur and Hoshiarpur.  It is in­ter­est­ing to note that though the po­lice may have re­moved the posters from the walls, they are in wide cir­cu­la­tion on the in­ter­net.

“We will re­ward with a Gold medal and more any­one who pro­vides de­tails about the where­abouts of the ab­scond­ing killer cop, who bru­tally tor­tured and ex­tra­ju­di­cial mur­dered hun­dreds in il­le­gal po­lice cus­tody.”

Kan­warpal Singh, Spokesper­son, Dal Khalsa

Sig­nif­i­cantly, the Dal Khalsa did not stop at that. Cock­ing a snook at the Pun­jab Po­lice known to put a price on the heads of Sikh free­dom fight­ers, the Dal Khalsa leader Kan­warpal Singh told the me­dia, “We will re­ward with a Gold medal and more any­one who pro­vides de­tails about the where­abouts of the ab­scond­ing killer cop, who bru­tally tor­tured and ex­tra­ju­di­cial mur­dered hun­dreds in il­le­gal po­lice cus­tody.”

Sikh so­cial me­dia ac­tivists are awash with posters about the vol­un­tary dis­ap­pear­ance of Sumedh Singh Saini.  Those whose chil­dren were vic­tims of in­vol­un­tary dis­ap­pear­ance are seething with anger at the in­ef­fi­ciency of the Pun­jab Po­lice in ar­rest­ing the ab­scond­ing Di­rec­tor Gen­eral of Po­lice Pun­jab and are wait­ing with bated breaths about how, where and in what con­di­tion will he be de­tained.

While the Pun­jab Po­lice will now be forced to ex­e­cute ju­di­cial or­ders, one won­ders what steps will the Cap­tain Amarinder Singh-led Con­gress gov­ern­ment take against those po­lice per­son­nel who were pro­tect­ing him as he was sup­posed to be a Z-se­cu­rity pro­tected? Have pro­ceed­ings been ini­ti­ated against them for neg­li­gence? Where are they? Are they with Sumedh Singh Saini wher­ever he is in hid­ing?

A Mum­bai-based lawyer Am­rit­pal Singh has dashed off an SOS to Pun­jab Po­lice DGP Dinkar Gupta ask­ing him to is­sue red-cor­ner no­tice against Sumedh Saini so that he does not flee the coun­try. His plea reads, “There is a very strong rea­son to be­lieve that Sumedh Singh Saini might es­cape from the coun­try. There­fore, it is im­por­tant to ap­proach the Na­tional Cen­tral Bu­reau (In­ter­pol) and get a “RED COR­NER” no­tice against Sumedh Singh Saini, so that his at­tempt (if any) to flee from this coun­try are foiled and he does not es­cape from the clutches of law.”

Har­jin­der Singh from San Jose, whose brother and three other Sikh youth were killed in 1986 weep­ingly told WSN on the phone, “I still await that the killer cops of my brother and his friends of the Sikh Stu­dents Fed­er­a­tion are brought to jus­tice. My el­derly fa­ther and mother will heave a sigh of re­lief to see Saini be­hind bars.”

The com­ments of Jus­tice Fate­hdeep Singh while re­ject­ing the bail plea of Sumedh Saini tells the whole story of po­lice high-hand­ed­ness.

Quot­ing a Supreme Court judge­ment in the case of  ‘Japani Sa­hoo vs. Chan­dra Sekhar Mo­han­ty’ (2007) 7 SCC 394, the Supreme Court of In­dia has held that gen­eral rule of crim­i­nal jus­tice is that a crime never dies. The rel­e­vant part of the judg­ment reads, “The gen­eral rule of crim­i­nal jus­tice is that “a crime never dies”. The prin­ci­ple is re­flected in the well- known maxim nul­lum tem­pus aut lo­cus oc­cur­rit regi (lapse of time is no bar to Crown in pro­ceed­ing against of­fend­ers).

“Since it is at this junc­ture, the in­ves­ti­gat­ing agency has woken up and gath­ered courage to in­ves­ti­gate its own of­fi­cer and there­fore, the vi­tal pieces of ev­i­dence which would come handy in lead­ing to var­i­ous leads would inch to­wards un­rav­el­ing this puz­zle which too has baf­fled the cit­i­zenry who are look­ing upon the jus­tice sys­tem as a last re­sort to get jus­tice…”

Jus­tice Fate­hdeep Singh, in the or­der dis­miss­ing the bail plea of Sumedh Singh Saini

Cit­ing the way­ward­ness of Saini and his power to in­tim­i­date wit­nesses and in­ves­tiga­tive of­fi­cers, Jus­tice Fate­hdeep Singh of the Pun­jab and Haryana High Court con­cluded, “More­over, as is brought to the no­tice of this Court that in the Trial of this case at New Delhi the pe­ti­tioner has in­tim­i­dated even the in­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cer of CBI forc­ing him to turn hos­tile. Since much ev­i­dence of po­lice of­fi­cials and other wit­nesses has come up af­ter the de­ci­sion of ear­lier bail ap­pli­ca­tion of pe­ti­tioner,”

“An ur­gent need arises to pre­serve the same from pry­ing eyes of the pe­ti­tioner, for the trial. More­over, in such na­ture of crime the com­mis­sion is in ut­most se­crecy and com­ing across wit­nesses is a her­culean task in it­self as it is more based on cir­cum­stances and com­mon hu­man ex­pe­ri­ences which were ex­pe­ri­enced in abun­dance by this State in those dark days. Since it is at this junc­ture, the in­ves­ti­gat­ing agency has woken up and gath­ered courage to in­ves­ti­gate its own of­fi­cer and there­fore, the vi­tal pieces of ev­i­dence which would come handy in lead­ing to var­i­ous leads would inch to­wards un­rav­el­ing this puz­zle which too has baf­fled the cit­i­zenry who are look­ing upon the jus­tice sys­tem as a last re­sort to get jus­tice.

….In the light of the se­ri­ous­ness of of­fences that have come about there be­ing every like­li­hood of pe­ti­tioner sti­fling fair in­ves­ti­ga­tions and trial and for which cus­to­dial in­ter­ro­ga­tion of the pe­ti­tioner is very much es­sen­tial to piece to­gether this un­for­tu­nate in­ci­dent, ne­ces­si­tates dis­missal of the in­stant bail ap­pli­ca­tion,” added the judge.

Now are test­ing times for the Pun­jab and In­dian po­lice ad­min­is­tra­tion to de­tain a fugi­tive from the law who at one time was a law unto him­self.