CHANDIGARH: Harkrat Singh, a grandson of the Punjab Chief Minister, Beant Singh, has been identified as one of the persons involved in the incident in which a Contessa car had dashed against a tree in Sector 36 last week under mysterious circumstances.

His identity was disclosed when the police questioned the driver of the car involved in the accident which was traced and taken to a police station, It is now been ascertained that the car is registered in the name of the State Transport Authority, Punjab and is one of the Congress after verified to the Chief Minister from the ministerial pool. This may had been one of the reasons for the alacrity with which the occupants removed the registration number plate and sought to hush up the incident.

‘The curly haired and bearded tall person, who was photographed removing the number plate of the car, has been identified as Kultar Singh Gill, who is a nephew of Iqbal Singh Gill inside whose residence in Sector 36, the car was found parked late in the night. Ved Pal, the Deputy Superintendent of Police (Security) to the Punjab Chief Minister had removed the car from the site of the accident to Singh’s house, The red Maruti car in which Harkirat and others subsequently reached the site of the accident to remove the car belongs to Gill’s family.

This incident has an uncanny parallel with the case in which Beant Singh’s another grandson Gurkirat Singh is at present in Judicial custody facing the charge of alfempt to rape a French tourist Ms, Katia Damand, In Katia case too, the accused used a White Contessa car with a flag pole which the police claimed as belonging to one of the accused, Ashwani Mehra, Also, Ms. Katia in her statement, recorded at the time of identification parade, had repeatedly said that the tall, fair suspect with curly brown hair who misbehaved the most with her was missing from the identification parade, ‘The cause of the accidents, however, remains unanswered although some eye witnesses felted it to the case of eye leasing. The Chandigarh police which has questioned some of the suspects, however, has not registered any case, They maintain that it could be merely a traffic violation.

Article extracted from this publication >>  October 7, 1994