NEW DELHI: Dev. Pal Singh, 23, a Punjab militant involved in the Radu case and trapped in the Connaught Place encounter, had actually been killed in police hands by a shot fired from an assistant sub-inspectors revolver, and not by consuming cyanide as the police have been claiming.
This was revealed by the viscera report, now available with the police. A departmental enquiry also established that the fatal bullet was “shot by an assistant sub-inspector.
Acting on a tip-off from the Intelligence Bureati, a raiding party of the Delhi polices special branch was sent to Connaught Place where Dev Pal was making a call on October 16. Dev Pal panicked on spotting it and filed. He was given a hot chase. The armed militant shot in the air while fleeing and tried to get hold of a scooter near the Statesman building. According to the investigation the scooterist who resisted was fired on by the militant. But he was overpowered by a crowd that had gathered.
Meanwhile, the police also arrived. A sub-inspector tried to grapple with the militant and in the process his revolver fell. Dev pal’s revolver too, fell in the melee.”
An assistant sub-inspector shot at Dev Pats hand and buttock to make him immobile, despite his bens at the full mercy of the police.
The report revealed that another assistant sub-inspector, apparently in a rush of blood shot Dev Pal in the chest from point blank range when he was being bundled into the police vehicle
“Local media had exposed the police lapse soon after the incident. But, it was hotly disputed by the police chief. Anin Bhagat. He had maintained that Dev Pal was seen taking out something from his pocket and swallowing and that the autopsy had shown signs of poison.
Dev Pal had died an hour after the incident in Lohia Hospital. He was doing M.Tech in the Patiala engineering College.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 6, 1991
