CHANDIGARH: Movement Against State Repression (MASR) convenor Inderjit Singh Jaijee, former MLA, entered a public interest writ petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking direction to the Punjab government for a judicial enquiry into deaths in police custody in the State,
The petitioner said the police professed that the deaths took place in police encounters or by suicide, Some believe these resulted from police torture and state repression. He attached an annexure to the petition listing 83 such deaths. It mentioned the death of Avtar Singh a candidate for the denotified Punjab sections from Assembly court, who was arrested by the police on July 25,1991, and was later shown to have been killed in an encounter. The petitioner wrote to the Election Commission about this death on August 8,1991, but no concrete action was taken,
The petition also refers to the recent incident at village Behla in Amritsar district.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 10, 1994
