The mystery around the death of a 28-year-old CTU employee deepened on Thursday with the WWICS Group, an immigration consultancy, linking the case with the suicide of former Chief Khalsa Diwan (CKD) head Charanjit Chadda’s son.
Lt Col Baljit Singh Sandhu (retd), chairman of WWICS Group, and owner of Forest Hill Resort in Nayagaon, is named in the FIR of the CTU worker’s murder. He remains untraceable.
Baljit’s son Davinder Sandhu is lodged in the Amritsar jail for allegedly abetting the suicide of Charanjit’s son Inderpreet Chadha. A Punjab Police special investigation team (SIT), led by Punjab ADGP Parbodh Kumar, is investigating the case.
Addressing a press conference here, Rajiv Bajaj, director of WWICS Estates Pvt Ltd, while speaking on behalf of Baljit and his son, claimed internal rivalry of Punjab Police’s officials was behind the murder case.
A local Kharar court on Thursday extended the remand of the three accused by two days.
Claiming that it was a deep-rooted conspiracy to bring down DGP (human resource development) S Chattopadhyaya, Bajaj demanded a CBI probe in the matter.
“While Davinder is already behind bars, some influential people are now trying to implicate his father Baljit in the case in which he has no role. While the body was recovered from Haryana, the Mohali Police have named our MD (Baljit) in the murder case in haste,” said Bajaj. He also denied that the victim was found dead on the premises of the resort.
The victim, Abhishek Guleria, a Burail resident and native of Himachal Pradesh, had gone missing on March 14. He was found dead on the Pinjore-Baddi road on March 25.
After getting leads, Mohali police named Baljit in the murder FIR on March 27. Besides, they had arrested three employees of the upscale Forest Hill Resort, located 5km from PGIMER, Chandigarh, for allegedly dumping the victim on the Pinjore-Baddi road on March 22.
While the trio is facing a case under Sections 302 (murder), 201 (destruction of evidence) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code, no charges have been pressed against Baljit.
The accused, liasoning officer Gurdeep Bains, his assistant Tarsem Singh and security in-charge Balwinder Singh, had claimed that they found Guleria’s body in the tank of resort’s sewage treatment plant, following which they informed Baljit, who asked them to dispose of the body to avoid controversy.
‘Davinder being forced to implicate HRD DGP’
Alleging that Davinder was being tortured in police custody, the WWICS management claimed that the former was being forced by IG (crime) LK Yadav, a member of the SIT probing the Chadda suicide case, to implicate Punjab DGP HRD S Chattopadhyaya by naming his association with Kuljeet Ghuman, a woman accused in the suicide case.
“Chattopadhyaya is being implicated only so that he is not considered for Punjab DGP’s post that is getting vacant in the next few months. Since he is also heading the SIT formed by Punjab and Haryana high court for investigating Bhola drug racket in which names of many influential people, including high-ranking officials of Punjab Police may also come up, Chattopadhaya is being framed in the Chadda suicide case. Chattopadhyaya has already informed the HC of being deliberately implicated in the case,” Bajaj claimed.
He went on to claim that just to overreach the HC-formed SIT headed by Chattopadhaya, the special task force (STF), dealing with investigation of drugs in Punjab, had recently been put under the charge of the DGP, while earlier, it was directly reporting to the Punjab chief minister.
Accused’s remand extended
A local Kharar court on Thursday extended the remand of the three accused by two days. Sources from the district police said more raids were carried out at the WWICS offices in Phase 6, Mohali, and in Chandigarh, to nab Baljeet. But he remained untraceable.