Former Amritsar SSP, 4 others sentenced to 8 years jail in abetment to suicide case

Five people including former Amritsar SSP Kulatar Singh on Wednesday were sentenced to 8 years imprisonment by a court here in the 2004 case where a family was forced to commit suicide.

In 2004, five members of Hardeep Singh's family of Chowk Moni area of Amritsar committed suicide. Hardeep's father was killed due to a family feud. Some relatives of Hardeep Singh saw him throwing his father's body and complained to the police.

The then SSP of Amritsar, Kulatar Singh took a bribe of Rs 5 lakh from Hardeep Singh. Hardeep's wife was then raped and blackmailed by Kulatar Singh for two days on the pretext of investigation.

When Hardeep came to know about this, he along with his mother, wife and two sons committed suicide. They wrote the name of Kulatar Singh and their relatives, who forced the family to commit suicide.

The then SHO Hardev Singh reached the spot and tried to remove the name of Kulatar Singh from the walls and erase the evidence but he could not succeed as the media reached the spot.

"Former SSP Kulatar Singh has been convicted by the court under Section 306 (abetment to suicide), Section 388, Section 506, Section 120B (criminal conspiracy) and Section 465 of IPC," advocate Parminder Singh Sethi, appearing as a proxy for advocate Sarabjeet Singh Verka, who fought the case for the family, told reporters.