Accused kills self, villagers refuse to cremate his body
KURUKSHETRA: Jagdeep Malik, who was accused of killing his cousin’s three children in Panchkula in November, was found dead in the Kurukshetra district jail late on Thursday evening.
The residents of Kurukshetra’s Sarsa village, to which the accused and his family belonged, refused to cremate Malik’s body.
The 26-year-old was accused of murdering his cousin Sonu’s three children in Sarsa. During police interrogation, he admitted to the killings and led the police to the spot in Panchkula’s Morni hills where the bodies of Sameer, 11; Simran, 8, and Samar, 4, were found on November 21, two days after they went missing.
“The villagers held a meeting and decided not to take his body. They have also decided that they will not allow his cremation in our village,” Sarsa village Sarpanch Karanbir Singh told HT.
He added that the entire village, including the mother of the deceased children, agreed with the decision as the villagers “did not want to see his (Malik’s) face, even after his death”.
When contacted, Sector 7 police post in charge Raj Pal said, “We informed the villagers about the incident but they refused to take the body. We will keep it in the mortuary for the next 72 hours. If nobody comes to claim it, the police will cremate it.”
The official said it was found in the preliminary probe that Malik committed suicide by hanging himself in the toilet.
Police sources said Malik was upset as he was sent to judicial custody after a six-day remand last month.
MALIK’S DEATH TO AFFECT PROBE?
Though the special investigation team formed by chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar under Karnal SP Jashandeep Randhawa is still investigating the case to find out if the father of the children was involved— as was earlier claimed by the accused — officials said Malik’s death would affect the probe.
“We were planning to conduct a polygraph test to find out why Malik killed the children and if Sonu was involved in the murder. Now, we will have to depend on the other people,” Randhawa said.