MOHALLI: The Mohali police have booked prime accused Aviar Singh Taari vice-chairman of the Chandigarh State Cooperative Bank among others in connection with the gang-rape and death of Som Arya (18) a resident of Gurdaspur.
As per the FIR registered by the police Mandeep Singh Additional Deputy Commissioner Mohali has been charged with helping the accused in disposing of the body. Inspector Kamail Singh Malhi who had accompanied the body to Gurdaspur where it was later cremated without conducting a postmortem has been placed under suspension and shifted to the police lines.
According to the police Taari and his friends repeatedly raped Sonu which allegedly led to her death on December 6. The girl was lured from Gurdaspur where her father is a vegetable vendor on the pretext of getting her a job. Sonu was kept at a number of places in Mohali Panchkula and Delhi where she was allegedly offered to some of the clientele of Taari who is also a contractor. She was also taken to Jaipur from Delhi.
The girl was brought dead to Mohall on December 7 and the body was Straight away taken to the residence of the ADC Mandeep Singh who gave a written order to the police that postmortem be conducted in the presence of her family members. The contractor had in fact told the ADC that the girl had fallen into an abandoned well at Kot Putli village behind a Dhaba on Jaipur-Delhi highway on the evening of December 6. T had no way to ascertain the facts and since the DSP concerned was not present I passed an order in the capacity of a magistrate for postmortem says the ADC.
Senior Superintendent of Police Ajit Singh Sandhu however said that as the case pertained to Rajasthan the orders for postmortem should have been released by the officers concerned on that state. Incidentally the police have omitted Mandeep Singhs name from the Special Crime Report which was submitted to the District Magistrate Ropar.
The police have already taken into custody Taari and Surjit Singh another contractor who is the son of the sarpanch of Mohali village. DSP Purshotam Singh has been entrusted with investigations. The preliminary inquiry was claimed out by Paran Raj Singh SP(D) Ropar on the basis of which the police have registered a suo motu FIR
Sandhu says that the police are convinced that Sonu died because of repeated rape over a period of time and the contractor was not alone in this sordid game. Taari according to the police kept on changing his versions on the circumstances leading to Sonus death. First he told the police that she fell from a rooftop then he said it was a road accident and so on It is learnt that the father of the victim Hardeep Arya was made to believe the dubious version regarding the incident to avoid a postmortem. He was also observed a job as a security guard. Taris wife who refused to divulge her name and termed the case as cock and bull Story said they had affidavits from witnesses who had pulled out the girl from the well near Kot Pudi. Surjit Singhs brother Surmukh Singh said that his younger brother was innocent. Taari came to our house on December 7 and asked Surjit to accompany him to Gurdaspur with the dead body he said.
The police however are piqued by the question as to why the postmortem wasn’t done in Rajasthan? And why was it brought to ADC Mohali?
Meanwhile a Congress minister and two sifting MLAs are said to have mounted pressure to help the accused.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 14, 1994
