Nearly 15 years after five members of a family ended their life in Amritsar, a local court on Monday convicted retired deputy inspector general of police (DIG) Kultar Singh, sitting deputy superintendent of police Hardev Singh and four other accused here for abetment to suicide, criminal intimidation and extortion.
Rittu Kumar, assistant public prosecutor said additional session judge, Sandeep Singh Bajwa ruled that the six were guilty in the mass suicide case. The quantum of sentence will be announced on February 19.
Activists of Punjab Human Rights Organisations (PHRO), which played vital role in the case, welcomed the court’s ruling. The case dates back to October 31, 2004, when Hardeep Singh, a resident of Chowk Karori locality in the city, his wife Romi, mother Jaswant Kaur, and children Simran and Ismeet, committed suicide by consuming poison. The family scribbled a suicide note on a wall in their house, and also mailed a similar note to their friends, accusing four of their relatives and Kultar Singh, the then Amritsar senior superintendent of police (SSP), of forcing them to take the extreme step.
Hardeep Singh was being blackmailed after he allegedly committed a crime. Fed up with repeated demands for money, he and his immediate family committed suicide in 2004. Though the local police registered a case, no one was taken into custody.
