CHANDIGARH, May 24 — In a reply before the Punjab and Haryana High Court here, Punjab Inspector General of Police Mr K.K. Attri, today stated that the enquiry being carried out in Harpreet Kaur’s case had confirmed her engagement with petitioner Mr Kamaljit Singh.

The IGP stated that a room was booked in a Sector 22 motel by Mr. Kamaljit Singh on September 6, 1999, for the engagement ceremony. He also stated that the petitioner had stayed in the motel nine times.

The enquiry, he added, had also revealed that “one Harpeet Kaur, wife of Kamaljit Singh” had visited a lady doctor “where the pregnancy test on urine was found positive”.

Regarding the petitioner’s claim of being informed by Harpreet Kaur about hearing her child’s cry after birth, the IGP stated that the team of police officials" examined many doctors, registered nurses and midwives, but none confirmed the allegation”.

Authorities at Amritsar Medical College, he added, expressed the opinion that “up to 25 weeks gestation delivery, the child will neither cry nor survive without neonatological facilities”.

He further added that the “age of the foetus worked out to be 23 to 24 weeks as the petitioner had averred that the duration of the pregnancy was 16 to 17 weeks at the time of ultrasound examination on February 14”.

Terming the allegations as “vague and nebulous requiring further inquiry by the police to find out if a cognizable offence had been committed”, the IGP also stated that evidence corroborating the contentions in the writ petition had not been produced.

He added that neither the petitioner nor his relatives “had come forward to cooperate and associate themselves with the enquiry”. He further added that the petitioner “had full knowledge that the police administration had come into action by initiating enquiry into the death but instead of joining the same or waiting for the result, he had rushed to the High Court without any reasonable jurisdiction and cause”.

Taking up the petition today, Mr. Justice Amarbir Singh Gill fixed May 31 as the next date of hearing. Seeking directions for registering a case “against all those found responsible for causing Harpreet Kaur and her child’s death”, Mr. Kamaljit Singh had earlier asked for handing over the probe to an independent agency like the CBI. Directions for fixing responsibility on persons involved in the “disappearance of evidence” had also been sought.