No record available of probe into Multani disappearance: CBI
Srishti Jaswal Srishti.jaswal@htlive.com ■
CHANDIGARH: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Saturday told a Chandigarh court that it does not have any record of the preliminary investigation in the alleged abduction and fake encounter case of Balwant Singh Multani in 1991, involving former Punjab Director General of Police (DGP), Sumedh Singh Saini. The CBI’s response came on an application moved by the Punjab Police seeking documents of the preliminary probe, when the CBI was investigating the disappearance of Multani in 2007. It had also sought that the court summons record of the same.
Last month, a case was registered against Saini and seven others under Sections 364 (kidnapping or abduction in order to murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), 344 (wrongful confinement), 330 (voluntarily causing hurt to exhort confession) and 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) in Mohali, on a complaint from Multani’s brother, Palwinder Singh Multani.
Saini is on bail granted by a Mohali court.
On Saturday, the CBI submitted before special magistrate Ravish Kaushik that the documents collected during the investigation were either returned to the departments concerned or weeded out as per norms.
Balwant Singh Multani, son of an IAS officer who worked as a junior engineer with Chandigarh Industrial and Tourism Corporation (CITCO), was allegedly picked up by two police officers after a terrorist attack on Saini, the then Chandigarh SSP. In the attack, four cops in his security were killed. The police later claimed that Multani had escaped from the custody of the Qadian police in Punjab and his whereabouts, since then, were not known.