New Delhi: Gurtaj Singh Bhullar, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) senior block pramukh from Uttarakhand’s Jaspur, has made a number of serious allegations against the Uttar Pradesh police officers who were involved in the raid in which his wife, Gurpreet Kaur, was killed on October 12.
The BJP leader, speaking to the Indian Express, alleged that the team of Uttar Pradesh police that raided his home were inebriated, did not have a search warrant and came in plain clothes. He also alleged that during an argument, one of the police personnel shot and killed his wife.
Bhullar has demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the matter, saying that he is ready to face the consequences if his guilt is proved through the investigation.
“I am a block pramukh of the BJP. The BJP government is ruling in both the states… If a person like me cannot get justice, what hope remains for a common man?” The Express report quoted him as saying.
The police team had reportedly received a tip-off that one Zafar of the mining mafia, who carries a reward of Rs 50,000 on his head, was hiding at Bhullar’s house near Kashipur in Uttarakhand’s Udham Singh Nagar district.
Initial reports had claimed that Kaur had been killed in a shoot-out that broke out at Bhullar’s home between locals and the police personnel in which the police claimed two officers had sustained injuries.
While five officers are being treated at a hospital in Uttarakhand, two are missing.
The Uttarakhand police had earlier also leveled allegations against the Uttar Pradesh police team, saying that they did not intimate their Uttarakhand counterparts about the raid in advance and that when the Uttarakhand police officers arrived on the scene, they were taken hostage, their weapons snatched.
Further, according to the Express report, an official of the forensic department, after investigating the crime scene, said that they did not find evidence of cross-firing as the Uttar Pradesh police had claimed.
The Uttarakhand police also registered a case against 10-12 personnel of Uttar Pradesh police under Sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 302 (murder), 452 (house-trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrongful restraint), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 120-b (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code following a complaint filed by the family of the deceased.
Bhullar’s allegations
Bhullar alleged that 10-12 police officers dressed in plain clothes barged into his house around 6 pm on October 12. According to him, they did not provide a search warrant or any identity proof, there was no woman police officer amongst them, and were intoxicated when they entered the room where Bhullar’s wife and children were and started abusing when the BJP pramukh tried to reason with them.
“One of the policemen had shot her dead near the stairs on the first floor. They fired 3-4 gunshots and one hit her. We rushed my wife to a hospital, where she was declared dead on arrival,” the Express quoted Bhullar as saying.
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Bhullar also alleged that some of the police officers fled the scene after the gunshots were fired, but they were apprehended by some locals and taken to the Kunda police station. According to him, their car is still there.
He also said that the four police officers who managed to escape from the hospital were caught on CCTV cameras running down the stairs of the hospital and thus, junked the claims that they had sustained injuries, as was being claimed.
“They knew they had committed a murder and were drunk, and a medical examination at the hospital would have confirmed this. To avoid this, they escaped from the hospital,” he claimed to the newspaper.
Bhullar has alleged that the entire narrative of the Uttar Pradesh police is concocted; he admitted that he met with the accused, Zafar, two weeks prior to the incident when the latter came to him with claims that he was being framed in the mining case, but went on to say that Zafar was not present at Bhullar’s house when the incident took place.
Bhullar is seeking justice for his wife, and has demanded a CBI probe into the incident.
“I want justice. I appeal to the government for a CBI probe. BJP government is there in both states. If I’m at fault then I should be punished but a fair probe should be done,” he told news agency ANI.