Five retired Punjab Police cops gets life imprisonment for 1993 fake encounter in Tarn Taran | Watch video
PTC Web Desk: In a landmark judgment nearly three decades after the crime, a special CBI court on Monday sentenced five retired Punjab police officers, including former SSP Bhupinderjit Singh and retired DSP Davinder Singh, to life imprisonment for their role in a fake encounter that took place in Tarn Taran in 1993. The court held them guilty under Sections 302 (murder) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Initially, 10 police personnel were named as accused in the case. However, five of them passed away during the course of the prolonged trial. The remaining five have now been convicted and sentenced.
The case pertains to the extrajudicial killing of seven youths, including four Special Police Officers (SPOs), in two separate staged encounters orchestrated by the Punjab Police. These men were picked up from their homes on June 27, 1993, and illegally detained for several days. They were reportedly tortured while in custody.
On July 2, 1993, the Punjab Police claimed that three men—Shinder Singh, Desa Singh, and Sukhdev Singh—had escaped with government-issued weapons. Ten days later, on July 12, under the leadership of then-DSP Bhupinderjit Singh and Inspector Gurdev Singh, the police fabricated an encounter story.
The police alleged that they were escorting one Mangal Singh to Gharhka village in connection with a robbery case when their vehicle was ambushed by millitants. In the alleged exchange of fire, four persons—Mangal Singh, Desa Singh, Shinder Singh, and Balkar Singh—were killed. The police maintained that this was a legitimate encounter.
Following mounting pressure and a petition filed by victims’ families, the Supreme Court transferred the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on December 12, 1996.
However, postmortem reports revealed signs of brutal torture before the deaths, indicating custodial violence. Forensic examination also exposed major discrepancies in the weapons allegedly recovered and used during the encounter.
Despite having clear identification documents and family members available, the police conducted the cremation of the bodies by falsely declaring them unclaimed.
In 1999, the CBI registered a formal case based on a complaint filed by Narinder Kaur, the wife of one of the victims, Shinder Singh.
- PTC NEWS
