1st Lawrence Bishnoi interview filmed in Kharar: SIT

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 7

Nearly nine months after the Punjab and Haryana High Court described “known criminal” Lawrence Bishnoi’s in-custody interview as “glorifying crime and criminals” and a matter of grave concern, a special investigation team (SIT) constituted by the court has revealed that the first interview was conducted at the Kharar premises of the CIA, followed by another in Rajasthan.

The SIT report comes in the wake of a two-member high-powered committee constituted by the Punjab Government, which had claimed that it was “highly improbable” that the interviews were conducted either in jail or police custody in the state.

The Division Bench of Justice Anupinder Singh Grewal and Justice Lapita Banerji today asserted that the government’s committee took almost eight months to arrive at an inconclusive finding. “If it was an attempt to hoodwink the court or misdirect the proceedings of the court, it would be a serious matter and would be considered at an appropriate stage,” the Bench asserted.

The court made it clear that the “black sheep has to be identified and brought to the book at the earliest,” while expressing “hope and trust” that the SIT investigation would not be confined to “lower-level officials” and they were not made a scapegoat while protecting higher officers.

The court also directed the Punjab Chief Secretary to render all possible assistance to the SIT, even as it hastened to add that the “Punjab Police is one of the best police forces in the country but it needs to be insulated from extraneous influence”. The Bench also asked the state’s Director General of Police to furnish the details of criminal cases, especially relating to extortion/threatening calls, calls for ransom, abduction and intimidation of witnesses, from March 2023 — after the interviews were aired — till their removal in December 2023. The DGP was asked to compare the figures with the nine months preceding the broadcast of the interviews.

The Bench, last December, had directed the registration of two FIRs to be probed by the SIT while observing that the interviewee, Lawrence Bishnoi, was involved in 71 cases in Punjab and convicted in four matters, including offences under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Section 302 of the IPC and extortion. In the interviews, Bishnoi was seen to be justifying target killings and his criminal activities, including threats to a film actor.