Multani died due to torture in custody: Dismissed cop Pinki

MOHALI: Dismissed Punjab Police inspector Gurmeet Singh Pinki on Saturday appeared before the special investigation team (SIT) and recorded his statement in the case registered against former Punjab director general of police (DGP) Sumedh Singh Saini in connection with disappearance of Balwant Singh Multani, a Chandigarh Industrial and Tourism Corporation (CITCO) employee, in 1991.

“Multani had died due to torture in custody and his body was later disposed of. The story of handing over his custody to the Qadian police and his later escaping from there is just a cover-up,” said Pinki who appeared before SIT as a witness. He was with the probe team for more than three hours and reiterated what he had said in an interview to a magazine in December 2015.

Multani, a son of an IAS officer who worked as a junior engineer with CITCO, was allegedly picked up by two police officers after a terrorist attack on Saini, then SSP, Chandigarh, in which four policemen in his security were killed. The police later claimed that Multani had escaped from the custody of the Qadian police and his whereabouts since then are not known.

However, 29 years later, a case was registered against Saini and six others under Sections 364 (kidnapping or abduction), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), 344 (wrongful confinement), 330 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 120 B (criminal conspiracy) in Mohali on May 6 on the basis of a complaint filed by Multani’s brother Palwinder Singh Multani.