Prime suspect in GNDU teacher disappearance ''kills self'' in Maharashtra

PK Jaiswar/Charanjit Singh Teja

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, September 21 

The sequence of developments in the mysterious disappearance of an assistant professor of Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU) Sukhpreet Kaur Brar justifies nothing but the failure on the part of the police wing.

It took the police over 12 hours to confirm that the prime accused on its list was dead whereas the police could not zero-in on the whereabouts of the victim.  

Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (City-I) Lakhwinder Singh told that the police had no inkling about the suicide committed by prime accused Jazzinder Singh Virk alias Garry till the team reached there.  He hanged himself in Amboli, a tourist place in Maharashtra. The police found a suicide note.

“There was no official confirmation that the person died was Virk till our teams, which reached the spot gave us a feedback on it,” he said.

The incident clearly pointed towards complacency in the police probe considering that the victim had gone with her consent nevertheless she had left a note in her room before leaving.

Garry’s death had left the family members of the victim worried and diminishing the chances of her being alive.

Sukhpreet Kaur was missing since September 11 while the incident came to light four days later after her father approached the GNDU authorities when he received a ransom message from her reported “kidnapper”. She used to live in GNDU’s faculty accommodation in the campus.

During search of her room, the police came across a note mentioning the name of Garry. She wrote that she was going to meet him to get back the money he had borrowed from her. She also mentioned that if anything wrong happened to her, only Garry would be responsible for it.

Her brother Sukhdeep Brar also questioned the police investigations while alleging that it remained lethargic in its approach.

He alleged that family members themselves arranged CCTV footages through their sources and hand it over to the police for tracing Sukhpreet Kaur.

He pointed out that if she could not be located beyond Beas or Subhanpur, the police could have launched search operations in these areas to trace her.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (investigations) Jagmohan Singh refuted the charges and said that the police had been on the job and was locating the accused in order to trace the two. He maintained that the CCTV footage of GNDU campus market revealed that she had gone with her consent.