LUCKNOW: The Special court of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has issued nonsalable warrants against 57 police officers who were charged with gunning down to Sikh pilgrims in 1991, the pilgrims wore declared “terrorists” by these police officers.
According to court soirées, the special term of the CBI had probed the matter following the Supreme Court’s directives and had submitted the charge sheet on June 12 last in the court of Vinay Srivastava, the Special Magistrate of CBI cases, who held that the offences were of a serious nature and directed that the case he registered against the accused policepersons.
According to the charge sheet three cases were registered under Supreme: Court orders dated May 15, 1992, on the writ petition filed by advocate RS. Sodhi, the advocate had filed the petition on July 18, 1991, on the basis of newspaper reports of the same day.
Sodhi had alleged that the 10 persons who were suspected to be Punjab militants by the Pilibhit police were in fact pilgrims, The police party headed by Vijendra Sharma, the then Additional DSP, intercepted the bus number that was carrying them near Kachla Ghat in Pilibhit on July 12, 1991.
Ten of the 11 Sikh pilgrims who were travelling along with 14 other passengers were picked and gunned down in the early hours of July 13, the other pilgrim remained untraced. Photographs of those killed were published in newspapers.
The police, however, denied the allegations and filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court claiming that those Killed were Punjab militants.
The petitioner filed affidavits of two other passengers of the same bus, The passengers submitted on oath that the Sikhs were pilgrims.
The court had fixed the next hearing ‘on June 26.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 30, 1995
