JALANDHAR: The main accused in the sensational killing of Superintendent of Police Gobind Ram, and three others in a bomb blast in 1990, have been acquitted by the designated court of the additional judge, H.P. Handa, after a five-year-long court battle, during which the prosecution produced more than 30 witnesses.

The accused, Darshan Lal, Dulip Singh and Sahib Singh, were set free for lack of any evidence against them. While Darshan Lal is a property dealer, Kuldip Singh and Sahib Singh are head constables of PAP battalions, posted here. The three were accused of planting a bomb in the cooler of the office of Gobind Ram, the then commandant of the 75th battalion, situated in the high security PAP complex. The explosion killed four per- sons besides seriously injuring six other officials.

As one witness after another denied any knowledge of the conspiracy or the role of the accused, the already crumbling case of the police suffered a major blow when Romesh Kumar, a property dealer, who used to frequent Darshan Lal’s statement before the police, when confronted with it. Police received another setback when the cross examination of Inderjit Singh Sandhu, Commandant, 80 PAP battalion, revealed that the interrogation report of the case was missing, making the judge remark, “for reasons best known, the report has not seen the light of the day.”

Inspector Daljit Singh, who partly investigated the case, further weakened the police theory when he told the court that while preparing the chailan against the accused, he had not been aware of any evidence against them. Inspector Janak Raj, the then Station House Officer of the Jalandhar Cantonment police station, nailed the lie by admitting that the names of the accused did not come to his notice while the case was under investigation.

Earlier, the three accused, who were being tried under sections 302 and 307 of the IPC and sections 4 and 5 of the Explosive Substances Act besides sections 3, 4 and 5 of the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Prevention Act, had pleaded not guilty, saying that they had been framed in the case.

 

Article extracted from this publication >> October 20, 1995