Nakodar, July 2
The court of Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate awarded a three-year imprisonment to suspended ASI Gurdeep Singh of the Punjab Police and two others in a case of forgery and cheating.

The trio was found guilty of forging property documents which were used to cheat Bhajan Singh of the Bajwa village.

On October 13 last year, Bhajan Singh had lodged a complaint against ASI Gurdeep Singh, Gurdeep and Dalip following which the trio was booked under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471 and 120 B of the IPC.

According to Additional Public Prosecutor Anil Kumar, Bhajan Singh had taken a loan of Rs 6 lakh at 2.5 per cent interest from ASI Gurdeep Singh for sending his son Tirath Singh abroad. When the ASI demanded security, Bhajan gave him blank stamp papers of Rs 300 bearing his thumb impression and his son’s signatures.

But Bhajan Singh was not able to pay the loan amount, owing to which he had to transfer ownership of some of his property (equal to the loan amount including interest) in the name of ASI’s wife in January last year.

But when Bhajan Singh demanded stamp papers back, the ASI (then posted at Mehtpur police station) said he would destroy the same.

But the cop converted the papers into ‘benama’ agreement with the help of Gurdeep and Dalip and transferred some properties of the Bhajan Singh to his name. He said the ASI even mentioned in the agreement that he had paid an earnest money of Rs 10 lakh to Bhajan Singh, said the Additional Public Prosecutor.

After Bhajan Singh lodged a complaint, the ASI was suspended. The trio was lodged in jail since last nine months. Even the high court denied them bail and issued orders for day-to-day hearing of the case.

SSP (Rural) Ashish Chaudhary, “I will soon issue order of ASI’s termination.”

Amritsar, July 2
The investigations into the rape case of a minor girl in Tarn Taran area, in which the police booked a close relative of Akali minister Ranjit Singh Brahmpura, is in the final stages, said Tejinder Singh Maur, SP Operations (Tarn Taran), who is probing into the charges of rape.

“We are in the final stages of the inquiry and hopefully we will submit its report soon,” said the SP.

It is pertinent to mention here that the Tarn Taran police booked Satnam Singh, president, Gurdwara Managing Committee at Chohla Sahib, and a close relative of Brahmpura on charges of raping a 13-year-old girl. A case was registered on the complaint of the victim’s mother on June 1.

On arresting the accused, the SP said Satnam was absconding and the police was making efforts to arrest him.

The victim’s family had alleged that they were being pressurised to reach on a compromise with the accused.

Earlier, Punjab Minister for Social Security, Women and Child Welfare Laxmi Kanta Chawla had approached the Punjab Human Rights Commission seeking justice for the minor girl. Chawla had also met with the victim and her family and expressed her unhappiness over the progress of the investigations.

She said that she had earlier took up the issue with the Punjab's women commission and it failed to initiate any satisfactory action after which she decided to approach the PSHRC. She apprehended that the victim's family is being pressurised in order to hush up the case.

Jalandhar, July 2
An Army man drowned in a sarovar of Gurdwara Gangsar in Kartarpur on Friday evening.

Gurcharan Singh, the victim, was a resident of Haripur near Adampur.

Posted in Uttar Pradesh, Gurcharan Singh was on leave and went to the gurdwara along with his friend Baljit Singh to take bath in the sarovar.

Sources in the gurdwara said Gurcharan Singh accidentally slipped in the deep pond and drowned. He did not know how to swim.