Moga, August 29
A police party deployed at a naka allegedly clubbed a youth to death near Daulewala village, under the Kot-ise-Khan police station, in this district late last night.
According to the details available with the police, Pritam Singh (25) of Shah Abu Bakkar village and his cousin Gurpal Singh of Ferozewala village were coming back to Ferozewala after day’s work at about 8 pm on a scooter when the police party signalled them to stop. They were coming from Chugge village where they had been carrying out boring work for the past five days.
Since Pritam was driving the scooter at a little high speed, his scooter stopped a few yards away from the naka. One of the policemen, started thrashing Pritam with a bamboo stick as soon as he approached them. Other policemen joined him. Pritam fell down unconscious, bleeding profusely. Gurpal also got the beating.
Gurpal, anyhow, convinced the police to let them go and took Pritam to a nearby private hospital. He was assisted by his brother Ranjit Singh, who was also stopped by the police at the naka. There was no doctor available in the hospital and they rushed Pritam to the civil hospital at Moga.
He died a couple of hours later at the hospital, said a senior doctor. The body was handed over to members of Pritam’s family after a post-mortem examination in the afternoon today.
SHO of the Kot-ise-Khan police station Jaswinder Singh, when contacted on his mobile phone, said he had got registered a criminal case on charges of “causing death by doing rash or negligent act not amounting to culpable homicide” under Section 304 (A) of the IPC against the police party. However, no arrests had been made, he added.
Police sources said nine policemen were deployed at the naka, including an ASI, four commandos and four constables.
