His­tory is likely to turn full cir­cle. So is the hope of every jus­tice-seek­ing Sikh in the Pun­jab.  In the Be­hbal Kalan fir­ing case of 2015, two weeks back, SSP Cha­ran­jit Sharma was ar­rested. To­day IG Um­ranan­gal has been de­tained. Will the SIT of the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment be gutsy enough to de­tain for­mer Di­rec­tor Gen­eral of Po­lice Sumedh Saini, who is thor­oughly in­dicted by the Jus­tice Ran­jit Singh Com­mis­sion, but who has a ‘good past’ of  ‘sav­ing Pun­jab’ by killing Sikh youth ex­tra-ju­di­cially?

How long will the guilty be able to save them­selves? “Bakre ki amma kab tak khair man­ayegi?’ The at­ti­tude of the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment seems to be that they will no longer be able to.  With the ar­rest of IG Um­ranan­gal, the de­ten­tion of for­mer DGP Sumedh Saini does not seem far away.

In­spec­tor Gen­eral of Po­lice Paramraj Singh Um­ranan­gal, whose name fea­tured as one of the key of­fi­cers who acted un­law­fully in fir­ing at the peace­ful demon­stra­tors in Be­hbal Kalan in 2015, has been ar­rested in Chandi­garh by the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tion Team, set up to fol­low up on the re­port of the Jus­tice Ran­jit Singh Com­mis­sion.

“These of­fi­cers, In­spec­tor Gen­eral of Po­lice Paramraj Singh Um­ranan­gal, DIG Amar Singh Cha­hal, SSP S. S. Mann, SSP Ragh­bir Singh and SSP Cha­ran­jit Singh Sharma, even can­not put de­fence that they car­ried out or­ders of the DGP or the Gov­ern­ment un­will­ingly. The de­fence of this na­ture, about obey­ing ‘or­ders’ of su­pe­ri­ors, was re­jected long ago dur­ing Nurem­berg tri­als.”

Jus­tice Ran­jit Singh Com­mis­sion Re­port

Chief Min­is­ter Pun­jab Cap­tain Amarinder Singh seems to be act­ing upon his promise to the Bar­gari San­garsh Mor­cha by fol­low­ing up on the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tion Team and ar­rest­ing se­nior po­lice per­son­nel who were re­spon­si­ble for po­lice fir­ing at Be­hbal Kalan and Bar­gari vil­lages on peace­ful demon­stra­tors in 2015.

One of the key rec­om­men­da­tions of the Jus­tice Ran­jit Singh Com­mis­sion re­port, acted upon by the SIT reads, “Num­ber of po­lice of­fi­cers have been found li­able for fail­ing to carry out proper and fair in­ves­ti­ga­tions of in­ci­dents of sac­ri­lege and in the cases which were reg­is­tered re­gard­ing use of force at Kotka­pura and Be­hbal Kalan. Their names have been dis­closed in the dif­fer­ent parts of the re­port while deal­ing with these is­sues. The Com­mis­sion would ac­cord­ingly rec­om­mend ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion in ac­cor­dance with law against all such of­fi­cials.”

Even the Jus­tice Jora Singh Com­mis­sion, con­sti­tuted by the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal gov­ern­ment had also se­verely in­dicted IG Um­ranan­gal. The Peo­ples Com­mis­sion of Jus­tice Markandey Katju too ques­tioned the role of IG Um­ranan­gal.

Paramraj Singh Um­ranan­gal was in­ducted into the po­lice force on com­pas­sion­ate grounds, when his fa­ther Sukhdev Singh Um­ranan­gal was killed by mil­i­tants in May 1987. His grand­fa­ther Ji­wan Singh Um­ranan­gal was an Akali politi­cian, a mem­ber of the SGPC and a rev­enue min­is­ter in the Pun­jab cab­i­net. He was staunchly op­posed to the mil­i­tants and was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the gov­ern­ment of In­dia.

P. S. Um­ranan­gal, as he is gen­er­ally known has had cases of hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions, drug traf­fick­ing and in­dis­ci­pline against him.

In the Be­hbal Kalan fir­ing case, for­mer Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice Cha­ran­jit Sharma was de­tained a few days back.  It is learnt that he was at­tempt­ing to flee Pun­jab in an­tic­i­pa­tion of his ar­rest and pros­e­cu­tion in the Be­hbal Kalan fir­ing case.

Re­port­edly, IG Um­ranan­gal had, on the other hand, pe­ti­tioned the Pun­jab and Haryana High Court on Fri­day last ex­pect­ing the court to grant it stay from ar­rest af­ter a string of hol­i­days on Wednes­day next, but the po­lice higher-ups got wind of it and de­tained him to­day in an early morn­ing swoop.

On the other hand, Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice Bikramjit Singh and As­sis­tant Sub-In­spec­tor Pardeep Singh man­aged to get a stay on their ar­rest till 21 May, 2019.

Speak­ing to World Sikh News, Sukhraj Singh, son of Kr­is­han Bhag­wan Singh, who was mar­tyred by the po­lice at Be­hbala Kalan, along with Gur­jeet Singh Sarawan, who were peace­fully protest­ing as part of the Sikh con­gre­ga­tion against the des­e­cra­tion of Guru Granth Sahib by Sirsa Dera fol­low­ers in var­i­ous vil­lages of Farid­kot, said, “This is a pos­i­tive step by the SIT. It will lead to the higher-ups re­spon­si­ble for this heinous killing.”

While the pro­ceed­ings of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the SIT are not yet in the pub­lic do­main, the Jus­tice Ran­jit Singh Com­mis­sion re­port had made am­ple ref­er­ences to the role of IG Paramraj Singh Um­ranan­gal.  Though the Jus­tice Ran­jit Singh Com­mis­sion had clearly in­dicted IG Um­ranan­gal for his role in Kotka­pura, it had not made any con­clu­sive ref­er­ence about his role at Be­hbal Kalan. Ob­vi­ously, the SIT has un­cov­ered more dur­ing its in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­sult­ing in the de­ten­tion of IG Um­ranan­gal.

“This is a pos­i­tive step by the SIT. It will lead to the higher-ups re­spon­si­ble for this heinous killing.”

Sukhraj Singh, son of Kr­is­han Bhag­wan Singh, mar­tyr Be­hbal Kalan fir­ing

The crux of the ob­ser­va­tions of the Jus­tice Ran­jit Singh Com­mis­sion has been ex­pressed in the fol­low­ing para­graph of the re­port:

“If only the po­lice or the DGP had shown some pa­tience, the sit­u­a­tion could have been saved. Thus, DGP Sumedh Singh Saini can­not be al­lowed to es­cape re­spon­si­bil­ity for di­rect­ing the po­lice to get the dharna lifted forcibly. IG Paramraj Singh Um­ranan­gal, DIG Amar Singh Cha­hal, SSP S. S. Mann, SSP Ragh­bir Singh, SSP Cha­ran­jit Singh Sharma must share the blame for ex­e­cut­ing this avoid­able ac­tion. They be­ing se­nior of­fi­cers ought to have con­veyed their as­sess­ments to the DGP in­stead obey­ing his di­rec­tions blindly. They were se­nior enough to sug­gest a course of ac­tion when DGP Saini asked them to use force to lift dharna at Kotka­pura. If the civil dis­trict ad­min­is­tra­tion could sug­gest for not us­ing force then the po­lice could have also done so. These of­fi­cers even can­not put up de­fence that they car­ried out or­ders of the DGP or the Gov­ern­ment un­will­ingly. The de­fence of this na­ture about obey­ing ‘or­ders’ of su­pe­rior was re­jected long ago dur­ing Nurem­berg tri­als. Chief Sec­re­tary Mr. Sarvesh Kaushal, Sec­re­taries to CM S. K. Sandhu and Mr. Gagan­deep Brar have know­ingly failed to fur­nish de­tails known to them with pur­pose. Chief Sec­re­tary ought to have in­ter­fered ef­fec­tively to save the sit­u­a­tion.”

Jus­tice Ran­jit Singh makes a very im­por­tant re­mark, which is un­usual and rare in crim­i­nal ju­rispru­dence in In­dia. He says, “These of­fi­cers (IG Paramraj Singh Um­ranan­gal, DIG Amar Singh Cha­hal, SSP S. S. Mann, SSP Ragh­bir Singh, SSP Cha­ran­jit Singh Sharma) even can­not put de­fence that they car­ried out or­ders of the DGP or the Gov­ern­ment un­will­ingly. The de­fence of this na­ture, about obey­ing ‘or­ders’ of su­pe­ri­ors, was re­jected long ago dur­ing Nurem­berg tri­als.”

This kind of ref­er­ence and recog­ni­tion of the role of po­lice and ad­min­is­tra­tive per­son­nel seek­ing al­ibi on grounds of “obey­ing or­ders” was long overdu

Click the link to read the full text of the  Jus­tice Ran­jit Singh Com­mis­sion Re­port.  The World Sikh News in­vites in­quis­i­tive read­ers to read the ex­tracts men­tion­ing the role of IG Paramraj Singh Um­ranan­gal, given be­low:

EX­TRACTS from JUS­TICE RAN­JIT SINGH COM­MIS­SION RE­PORT re­lat­ing to the role of Paramraj Singh Um­ranan­gal (CW-95).

One of the paras of the re­port says, “It is on record that Shri Paramraj Singh Um­ranan­gal (CW-95) was specif­i­cally di­rected by the then DGP, Pun­jab Shri Sumedh Singh Saini (not ex­am­ined as he did not choose to ap­pear or to file re­sponse de­spite no­tice) to reach Kotka­pura chowk. Not only CW-95 but the then DGP also is­sued spe­cific di­rec­tions for Shri Cha­ran­jit Singh Sharma (CW-83) to cut short his leave, which he had ob­tained to per­form Shradh cer­e­mony of his fa­ther, to reach Kotka­pura. Be­sides SSPs of dis­tricts Mansa, Bhatinda, Fer­ozepur, Fazilka and the po­lice force from PAP bat­tal­ion as well as IRB bat­tal­ions and po­lice force of Com­mis­sion­er­ate, Lud­hi­ana were sum­moned at Kotka­pura.”

…..A sig­nif­i­cant ob­ser­va­tion by the Jus­tice Ran­jit Singh Com­mis­sion was, “One has not been able to un­der­stand as to why the po­lice or the se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers were so keen to lift this Dharna which con­ced­edly was a peace­ful Dharna to protest against a very se­ri­ous re­li­gious is­sue which had hurt the sen­ti­ments of Sikhs in the en­tire world.  The de­mand of the pub­lic sit­ting on Dharna could not be termed some­thing which was un­rea­son­able.”

….Sh. Um­ranan­gal (CW-95) had been moved to Kotka­pura on the di­rec­tion of DGP Mr. Sumedh Singh Saini (not ex­am­ined). Even Mr. Cha­ran­jit Singh Sharma (CW-83) moved on the or­ders of DGP con­veyed to him through CW-95. The po­lice force from out­side the range which was pre­sent in plenty could have moved only on the di­rec­tions of DGP.

…..He has placed on record his charge re­lin­quish­ing re­port as IG In­tel­li­gence on 14.10.2015 forenoon and his charge tak­ing re­port in the af­ter­noon on 14.10.2015 and that he was on med­ical leave from 14.10.2015 to 26.10.2015. In sup­port of this plea, he has re­lied on his con­fi­den­tial re­port where all these facts are men­tioned show­ing that he was as­sessed ac­cord­ingly for these pe­ri­ods. CW-74 ad­mit­ted that he was mon­i­tor­ing the move­ment at the chowk but from in­tel­li­gence point of view where Di­vi­sional Com­mis­sioner, and Deputy Com­mis­sioner, Farid­kot had also come and had seen the mon­i­tor. The wit­ness states that Sh. Paramraj Singh Um­ranan­gal was phys­i­cally pre­sent at the chowk and was see­ing the hap­pen­ings and was per­son­ally su­per­vis­ing the en­tire op­er­a­tion.

….Shri Um­ranan­gal (CW-95) in turn has also tried to palm off his re­spon­si­bil­ity for the ac­tion on the ground that he was just asked to be pre­sent there and was not in charge of the op­er­a­tion. CW-95, oth­er­wise ad­mit­ted that he was de­tailed by DGP Sumedh Singh Saini to pro­ceed to Kotka­pura where law and or­der prob­lem had taken place. This wit­ness had ear­lier re­mained as IG Bathinda zone and dur­ing his tenure the theft of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji had taken place at vil­lage Burj Jawa­har Singh Wala. As per CW-95, re­spon­si­bil­ity to trace the cul­prits of this crime was that of the then SSP, Farid­kot Sh. Cha­ran­jit Singh Sharma. This wit­ness had con­sti­tuted a SIT to in­ves­ti­gate the in­ci­dent. This wit­ness could not show if he had ever sought re­port about the progress of the case from this SIT. Irony is that this SIT did not meet even once. No won­der po­lice was un­able to trace the crime till some real ef­forts are made now.

….It is in ev­i­dence that CW-95 was de­tailed by the DGP to pro­ceed to Kotka­pura which mes­sage he had re­ceived at about 2.30 pm on 12.10.2015. CW-95 reached Kotka­pura in the evening and found Ji­ten­der Singh Aulakh (CW-210), the then Com­mis­sioner of Po­lice, Am­rit­sar also pre­sent there. CW-210, be­longs to vil­lage Bar­gari and his fa­ther had re­mained sarpanch of the vil­lage. Though CW-95 has claimed that he was sent there to as­sist Mr. Ji­ten­der Jain but sit­u­a­tion on ground does not stand in sup­port of this as­ser­tion. CW-95 was the most ac­tive po­lice of­fi­cer and every­body is seen com­ing to him for con­sul­ta­tion in the chowk. This can be seen clearly from the CCTV footage which has been re­ceived by the Com­mis­sion. He has also ad­mit­ted that he had in­formed DGP Sumedh Singh Saini when the dharna was lifted on the night of 12/​13.10.2015. When the pro­test­ers again sat on dharna, CW-95 was called back and reached Kotka­pura. This time he con­veyed the di­rec­tion of DGP to Cha­ran­jit Singh Sharma to reach Kotka­pura. He had met ADGP (Law and Or­der) on 13.10.2015 and ad­mit­ted to have par­tic­i­pated in the press con­fer­ence along with ADGP (Law and Or­der) on 14.10.2015. This wit­ness had sought time to pro­duce a record­ing to show that SSP Mansa was at­tacked with sword which he did and the same was seen by the Com­mis­sion. It can­not be clearly seen if SSP Mansa was at­tacked with sword rather it is seen in the CCTV footage that SSP Mansa is seen hit­ting a per­son with danda (stick). The as­ser­tion by CW-95 that he was sent to as­sist CW-74, is be­lied from what he had said dur­ing press brief­ing on 14.10.2015.

….Very strangely CW-95 has stated that de­ci­sion to use force at Kotka­pura was not his and he was not aware who had taken this de­ci­sion. He was se­nior most of­fi­cer pre­sent at the cru­cial time at the chowk. Not only this, he is con­stantly seen speak­ing with some­one on tele­phone through­out the du­ra­tion of the op­er­a­tion. Se­nior of­fi­cers are seen com­ing to him very fre­quently and were seen with him be­fore pro­ceed­ing to ar­rest Bhai Panth Preet Singh. SSPs are seen ap­proach­ing CW-95 and af­ter con­sul­ta­tion, are seen pro­ceed­ing to take ac­tion. His ver­sion that he is not aware as to who had taken de­ci­sion to use force to get the dharna lifted, thus, lacks cre­dence and can­not be ac­cepted. Since CW-95 was con­tin­u­ously seen talk­ing on the tele­phone and, thus, it is ob­vi­ous that the in­struc­tions, if any, were be­ing re­ceived by him which were be­ing passed on to the of­fi­cers to act in that par­tic­u­lar man­ner. The wit­ness ad­mits that he had given re­port to the DGP when chowk was cleared of dharna on the morn­ing of 13.10.2015. It is felt that noth­ing would have gone wrong, if the po­lice had not taken ac­tion to forcibly re­move the pro­test­ers. There were no rea­sons to do so.

….In fact the ver­sion of Cha­ran­jit Singh Sharma (CW-83) would re­veal the cat out of the bag. This wit­ness has stated that IG Paramraj Singh Um­ranan­gal had shared the in­struc­tions re­ceived from DGP with the of­fi­cers that they were to get dharna lifted as he (DGP) was hav­ing a fear that there may not be Hindu-Sikh ri­ots in the town which was a Hindu dom­i­nated area and Hin­dus may suf­fer the con­se­quences. CW-83 fur­ther ce­mented this ver­sion that po­lice was act­ing as per the in­struc­tions of Shri Paramraj Singh Um­ranan­gal who re­ceived in­struc­tions from DGP Sumedh Singh Saini. CW-83 went on to state that on the morn­ing of 14.10.2015 de­ci­sion was taken to ar­rest the pro­test­ers and in case they were not ready for the same, then saints lead­ing the dharna were to be ar­rested. This will ex­plain the ac­tion to catch Bhai Panth Preet Singh. CW-83 has also stated that all these in­struc­tions were re­ceived ei­ther by Shri Paramraj Singh Um­ranan­gal or SSP Farid­kot. Ac­cord­ing to him, IG Ji­ten­der Jain had vir­tu­ally no say and was a spec­ta­tor like oth­ers and all in­struc­tions were be­ing re­ceived by IG Paramraj Singh Um­ranan­gal. CW-83 also con­firmed that SSP S. S. Mann spoke to Deputy Com­mis­sioner and had called him at Kotka­pura at mid­dle of night. CW-83 has fur­ther stated that Paramraj Singh Um­ranan­gal might have spo­ken to some­one when he came with the in­struc­tions that the saints were to be ar­rested. CW-83 was one of the se­nior of­fi­cers along with SSP S. S. Mann and SSP, Mansa who had gone ahead to ar­rest Bhai Panth Preet Singh. He (CW-83) has nar­rated how the sit­u­a­tion turned ugly. It is, thus, clear that the op­er­a­tion at Kotka­pura chowk was un­der the charge of Shri Paramraj Singh Um­ranan­gal and he was a con­duit be­tween the DGP and the ac­tion which was taken to get the dharna lifted.

…The doubt, if any, in this re­gard can be set at rest from the Press brief­ing done by Mr. Paramraj Um­ranan­gal where he is heard claim­ing how he had de­puted all the se­nior of­fi­cers and about hap­pen­ings at Be­hbal Kalan. Oth­er­wise the ver­sion of CW-83 is re­quired to be ex­am­ined with cade and cau­tion.

…..Though the se­nior of­fi­cers had tried to re­main eva­sive in re­gard to the in­struc­tions which might have been con­veyed by DGP but some of the ju­nior of­fi­cers were more forth­right in this re­gard. One of­fi­cer who was pre­sent at Kotka­pura and was ready to speak the truth in con­fi­dence while keep­ing his name se­cret. On this as­sur­ance by the Com­mis­sion, he has stated that all the of­fi­cers pre­sent there at Kotka­pura were not in­ter­ested in tak­ing any ac­tion at Kotka­pura chowk and it was only upon the di­rec­tions from the DGP, which they could over hear, when the of­fi­cers were talk­ing amongst them­selves, that they were forced to take this ac­tion to get the dharna lifted by us­ing force.

….The fact that Mr. Paramraj Singh Um­ranan­gal was in con­stant touch with DGP Sumedh Singh Saini would come out clearly from the de­tails of tele­phone calls be­tween them at the cru­cial mo­ments on the morn­ing of 14th Oc­to­ber, 2015. The de­tails of tele­phone calls were re­ceived in the of­fice of Com­mis­sion on 01.11.2017 through some anony­mous source. On the ba­sis of call de­tails a com­mu­ni­ca­tion was ad­dressed to Shri Sumedh Singh Saini on 22.11.2015 in­form­ing that there were long du­ra­tion calls be­tween tele­phone num­bers 0172-2778788 (which was in­stalled at the house of Mr. Saini) and 0172-2548888 (in­stalled in the of­fice of Mr. Saini) with mo­bile num­ber 7508800001 used by Mr. Um­ranan­gal. There were long du­ra­tion calls be­tween mo­bile num­ber 9780213141 and the mo­bile num­ber 7508800001. Phone num­bers 0172- 2548888 and mo­bile num­ber 9780213141 were be­ing used by Mr. Sumedh Singh Saini dur­ing the rel­e­vant time as per the record ac­cessed by the Com­mis­sion. An op­por­tu­nity was af­forded to Mr. S.S. Saini on 22.11.2017 to file re­sponse by 5th De­cem­ber, 2017. It had al­ready been made clear to Mr. Saini that the Com­mis­sion may draw ad­verse in­fer­ence if no re­sponse was re­ceived from him. Even Mr. Um­ranan­gal has been re­called to con­front him with call de­tails when he has ad­mit­ted that he had so spo­ken to Mr. Saini. He had ear­lier re­mained eva­sive in this re­gard by stat­ing that he spoke to Mr. Jain and ADGP (Law and Or­der).

…..Sec­tion 114 of Ev­i­dence Act pro­vides that Court may pre­sume the ex­is­tence of any fact which it thinks likely to have hap­pened re­gard be­ing had to com­mon course of nat­ural events, hu­man con­duct and pub­lic and pri­vate busi­ness in their re­la­tion to the facts in par­tic­u­lar case. Il­lus­tra­tion (b) of Sec­tion 114 of the Act pro­vides that the Court may pre­sume that if a man re­fuses to an­swer a ques­tion which he is not com­pelled to an­swer by law, the an­swer if given would be un­favourable to him. Since Mr. Saini has failed to re­spond to the queries ad­vanced to him, the Com­mis­sion is well jus­ti­fied in law to draw ad­verse in­fer­ence and pre­sume that re­fusal by Mr. Saini means that an­swer be­ing given would have been un­favourable to him. The Com­mis­sion can hold that Mr. Um­ranan­gal and Mr. Saini were in con­stant touch and Mr. Um­ranan­gal was act­ing as per the di­rec­tions is­sued to him by Sumedh Singh Saini the then DGP. The de­tails of the call du­ra­tion are given as un­der:

…..Call de­tails of Sh. Um­ranan­gal with DGP (Sumedh Saini):                    

Sr. No.	Date	Time	Du­ra­tion	From	To	Type
1.	14.10.2015	4.01.30	73 sec­onds	7508800001	0172-2778788	Call
2.	14.10.2015	4.09.35	248 sec­onds	0172-2778788	7508800001	Call
3.	14.10.2015	4.14.34	110 sec­onds	0172-2778788	7508800001	Call
4.	14.10.2015	4.17	97 sec­onds	0172-2778788	7508800001	Call
5.	14.10.2015	4.21.50	68 sec­onds	0172-2778788	7508800001	Call
6.	14.10.2015	5.03.09	20 sec­onds	0172-2778788	7508800001	Call
7.	14.10.2015	5.04.47	286 sec­onds	0172-2778788	7508800001	Call
8.	14.10.2015	6.18.02	416 sec­onds	0172-2548888	7508800001	Call
9.	14.10.2015	6.26.20	120 sec­onds	0172-2778788	7508800001	Call
10.	14.10.2015	6.37.26	167 sec­onds	0172-2778788	7508800001	Call
11.	14.10.2015	6.44.12	290 sec­onds	9780213141	7508800001	Call
12.	14.10.2015	6.51.31	313 sec­onds	9780213141	7508800001	Call
13.	14.10.2015	6.57.44	127 sec­onds	7508800001	9780213141	Call
14.	14.10.2015	7.01.35	120 sec­onds	9780213141	7508800001	Call
15.	14.10.2015	7.06.51	53 sec­onds	9780213141	7508800001	Call
16.	14.10.2015	7.12.44	84 sec­onds	9780213141	7508800001	Call
17.	14.10.2015	7.25.5	210 sec­onds	9780213141	7508800001	Call
18.	14.10.2015	7.32.58	202 sec­onds	9780213141	7508800001	Call
19.	14.10.2015	7.45.30	91 sec­onds	9780213141	7508800001	Call
20.	14.10.2015	9.23.14	65 sec­onds	9780213141	7508800001	Call
21.	14.10.2015	10.54.25	104 sec­onds	7508800001	0172-2548888	Call
22	14.10.2015	11.39.18	112 sec­onds	0172-2778788	7508800001	Call

 

….As al­ready no­ticed, some of wit­nesses who ap­peared be­fore the Com­mis­sion were ready to dis­close facts if their names were not re­vealed. They have con­firmed this fact that it was the di­rec­tion from DGP that po­lice took ac­tion to lift dharna by us­ing force.

….The re­port has the ques­tion­naire sent to Sumedh Saini which has not been re­sponded by him, which in­cludes ques­tion of the role as­signed by Saini to Paramraj Singh Umaranan­gal.

….If only the po­lice or the DGP had shown some pa­tience, the sit­u­a­tion could have been saved. Thus, DGP Sumedh Singh Saini can­not be al­lowed to es­cape re­spon­si­bil­ity for di­rect­ing the po­lice to get the dharna lifted forcibly. IG Paramraj Singh Um­ranan­gal, DIG Amar Singh Cha­hal, SSP S. S. Mann, SSP Ragh­bir Singh, SSP Cha­ran­jit Singh Sharma must share the blame for ex­e­cut­ing this avoid­able ac­tion. They be­ing se­nior of­fi­cers ought to have con­veyed their as­sess­ments to the DGP in­stead obey­ing his di­rec­tions blindly. They were se­nior enough to sug­gest a course of ac­tion when DGP Saini asked them to use force to lift dharna at Kotka­pura. If the civil dis­trict ad­min­is­tra­tion could sug­gest for not us­ing force then the po­lice could have also done so. These of­fi­cers even can­not put up de­fence that they car­ried out or­ders of the DGP or the Gov­ern­ment un­will­ingly. The de­fence of this na­ture about obey­ing ‘or­ders’ of su­pe­rior was re­jected long ago dur­ing Nurem­burg tri­als. Chief Sec­re­tary Mr. Sarvesh Kaushal, Sec­re­taries to CM S. K. Sandhu and Mr. Gagan­deep Brar have know­ingly failed to fur­nish de­tails known to them with pur­pose. Chief Sec­re­tary ought to have in­ter­fered af­fec­tively to save the sit­u­a­tion.

…When the ver­sions given be­fore the Com­mis­sion by the wit­nesses are ex­am­ined in the light of the CCTV footage from four cam­eras at the chowk, it would clearly show that the ver­sion given by the pro­test­ers is true and cor­rect whereas the po­lice ver­sion is padded one and is not at all re­li­able on the core is­sues.

….Dur­ing their ex­am­i­na­tion by the Jus­tice Jora Singh Com­mis­sion, “Even all the se­nior po­lice wit­nesses start­ing from Paramraj Singh Um­ranan­gal CW-95), IG Ji­ten­der Jain (CW-74), DIG Amar Singh Cha­hal, SSP S.S. Mann, DSP Kotka­pura have stated be­fore the Com­mis­sion that no footage of the cam­eras af­fixed at the chowk was avail­able.”

…..Po­lice of­fi­cer like Shri Sumedh Singh Saini, DGP, Pun­jab, Shri Paramraj Singh Um­ranan­gal, IG Po­lice, Shri Amar Singh Cha­hal the then DIG Fer­ozepur range, Shri S. S. Mann the then SSP Farid­kot, Shri Cha­ran­jit Sharma (Retd.) the then SSP Moga, Shri Ragh­bir Singh, the then SSP Mansa, two gun­men of SSP, Farid­kot, who can be iden­ti­fied from the CCTV footage, are held re­spon­si­ble for the ac­tion at Kotka­pura.

….The re­spon­si­bil­ity of this in­ci­dent, there­fore, squarely lies with the po­lice. Se­nior of­fi­cers like Paramraj Singh Um­ranan­gal (CW-95), Amar Singh Cha­hal (CW-76) and some other of­fi­cers are seen go­ing up and down con­sult­ing each other thus giv­ing clear in­di­ca­tion of com­ing events about im­pend­ing use of force to lift dharna. They were ap­par­ently act­ing un­der in­struc­tions from DGP/​CM. They both have failed to re­spond and thus have been eva­sive.

……CW-177, in his af­fi­davit has not only named the po­lice of­fi­cers who had opened fire which hit him but had dis­closed the name of of­fi­cer who fired at Mr. Kr­is­han Bhag­wan (de­ceased). CW-177 states in his af­fi­davit that SHO Amar­jit Singh (CW-21) fired on the ask­ing of Bikramjit Singh which hit de­ceased Kr­is­han Bhag­wan in stom­ach. This wit­ness has stated that in­spec­tor Par­dip Singh had opened fire on the di­rec­tion of Mr. Cha­ran­jit Sharma (CW-83) which hit him above his thigh on his left side. As per CW- 177, sec­ond bul­let was fired by Har­jin­der Singh DSP on the ask­ing of Paramraj Singh Um­ranan­gal which hit him at the same spot. His af­fi­davit was kept in a sealed cover. This wit­ness was re­called when he dis­closed that dur­ing his ear­lier state­ment he could not dis­close these names as the po­lice had ob­tained his sig­na­tures on blank pa­pers and recorded his state­ment which was never made by him. He fur­ther dis­closed that due to threat ad­vanced by the po­lice he could not dis­close the com­plete facts be­fore Jus­tice Katju Com­mis­sion as well as be­fore Jus­tice Jora Singh Com­mis­sion when he was threat­ened and was lured with a promise of per­ma­nent job. This wit­ness has, thus, ex­plained his ear­lier state­ments where he had not dis­closed the names of the per­sons who had opened fired at him. The wit­ness has tried to jus­tify his pre­sent state­ment in this man­ner.