Mohali, Feb 14: A CBI court has handed down a five-year rigorous imprisonment sentence to former inspector Gurjit Singh for his role in the 1992 disappearance of a Mohali resident. The convict, who served as the Bathinda Station House Officer at the time of the incident, was also ordered to pay a fine of Rs 1 lakh.
The case stems from the kidnapping and criminal conspiracy involving Avtar Singh, a resident of Phase-IV, Mohali. The legal battle began after Avtar Singh’s wife, Inderjit Kaur, received an anonymous letter in March 1992 stating her husband was in the custody of the CIA in Bathinda. Despite her efforts to locate him in Bathinda, his whereabouts remained unknown, leading to the registration of a formal complaint in Mohali in April 1992.
Gurjit Singh had previously been declared a proclaimed offender after absconding during the defense evidence stage of the trial. While other accused individuals, Sukhwant Singh and Kanwaljit Singh, were convicted earlier and sentenced to three years of imprisonment, the trial against Gurjit Singh proceeded following his arrest.
The court noted the gravity of the offense while delivering the verdict against the Patiala native. Local police had initially filed an untraced report in the matter in November 1992, but the court in Kharar refused to accept the closure, leading to the eventual CBI intervention and conviction.
“Accordingly, she visited Bathinda, but could not get any clue or trace of her husband,” the complainant mentioned in her initial statement regarding the search for Avtar Singh.
