Hindustan Times (Chandigarh)

CBI pushes for polygraph test on Palvinder, he declines

- HT Correspond­ent

CHAND KAUR WAS SHOT DEAD BY TWO UNIDENTIFI­ED BIKEBORNE ASSAILANTS ON APRIL 4, 2016

MOHALI: The CBI on Monday demanded a polygraph test on Palvinder Singh alias Dimple arrested in connection with the high-profile murder of Namdhari sect matriarch Mata Chand Kaur.

However, Palvinder refused to undergo the test and recorded his denial statement in the court of special CBI Judge GS Sekhon in Mohali. Meanwhile, the CBI got the suspect’s remand for three days till October 3.

The agency had arrested Palvinder on September 26. It was the first arrest in the murder of Mata Chand Kaur, wife of former head of Namdhari sect late Satguru Jagjit Singh. She was shot dead by two unidentifi­ed bike-borne assailants at the Bhaini Sahib Gurdwara complex, 30 km from Ludhiana, on April 4, 2016. Palvinder is former driver of Thakur Dalip Singh, the head of the rival faction of Namdharis.

The CBI had learnt that an earlier polygraph test conducted by Punjab Police on Palvinder, an accused in the 2015 Jalandhar tiffin bomb blast, had revealed that he is aware of the identity of assailants of Mata Chand Kaur.

Palvinder, a resident of Delhi, was earlier arrested from Bangkok and deported to India on October 11, 2018, in connection with the tiffin blast that was aimed at killing the then sect head Satguru Uday Singh.

Palvinder was arrested by the Jalandhar police, which had claimed that he was one of the main conspirato­rs in the tiffin blast case. The police had arrested four persons in the case. Palvinder was lodged in Patiala jail. It was on September 24 that the CBI had moved a formal applicatio­n in the CBI court for his production warrants. The CBI had told the court that the accused was not cooperatin­g in the investigat­ions in the Chand Kaur murder case and thus he needed to be interrogat­ed in custody.

The Chand Kaur murder case was handed over to the CBI in September 2017 by the previous SAD-BJP government.

Meanwhile in Ludhiana, the Namdhari Sewa Satsang Society alleged that Palvinder has been framed for “harassing and eliminatin­g” the disciples of Thakur Dalip Singh.

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