FORMER KOTKAPURA SHO SENT TO JUDICIAL CUSTODY

FARIDKOT : A court here on Friday sent then station house officer (SHO) to 14-day judicial custody for his alleged role in tampering with the evidence in the Kotkapura police firing case.

The special investigation team (SIT) probing the 2015 firings on people protesting the Bargari sacrilege in Faridkot had arrested the said former SHO Gurdeep Singh Pandher by adding Sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) and 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc) of the IPC in the FIR registered on Pandher’s complaint on October 14, 2015, against the protesters.

Pandher was presented before the court of duty magistrate Harwinder Singh Sindhia after his one-day police custody ended on Friday.

District attorney (DA) Rajnish Goyal said the accused was in 14-day judicial custody as no further police remand was sought by the SIT.

As per the SIT, Pandher had allegedly tampered with the evidence in a bid to implicate some innocent persons. Pandher had claimed that five cops fired 10 bullets in self-defence after they were attacked by the protesters. He had made an entry in the register number 19 of malkhana regarding the deposit of 10 empty shells, but these were never deposited, claimed the SIT.

Pandher is also named as an accused in the FIR number 129 registered in 2018 by the SIT in Kotkapura firing case and he was out on bail.