Amritsar, Feb 19 (IANS) Almost 16 years after five members of a family ended their life, a trial court here on Wednesday sentenced former Punjab Deputy Inspector General Kultar Singh and four other police personnel to eight years of imprisonment for abetting suicide in 2004.
They were held guilty by Additional Sessions Judge Sandeep Singh Bajwa on February 17 along with Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Hardev Singh, who was sentenced for four years in jail, but withheld the quantum of the sentence.
The four others convicted are close-knit relatives of the victim’s family.
Hardip Singh, his wife, mother and two children allegedly committed suicide on October 31, 2004, after consuming poison in this city.
Before the suicide, the family had written a note on walls of a room of their house and had also sent copies of the suicide note to friends and acquaintances by post.
Kultar Singh was posted as the Senior Superintendent of Police here when they committed suicide. The family blamed the police for forcing them to take the extreme step.
In 2009, Punjab Human Rights Organisation activist Sarabjit Verka first brought the matter before a local court and sought justice for the victims as “police was not probing the case seriously despite having instituted three probes”.
The trial in the case began in March 2016 on the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
