Dehradun shootout: Life imprisonment for 17 policemen (Roundup)

A Delhi court Monday awarded life imprisonment to 17 of the 18 policemen convicted of killing a 22-year-old MBA student in a fake shootout in Dehradun in 2009.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Special Judge J.P.S. Malik awarded life terms to 17 policemen involved in the staged gun battle and said the case did not fall in the rarest of rare category and was based on circumstantial evidence.

CBI had asked for death penalty for the convicted policemen.

As the judge announced the order, the MBA student Ranbir Singh's father, Ravinder Pal Singh, broke down.

"The convicts must be awarded death penalty for their offences," he told reporters.

The wives of a few policemen also broke down inside the courtroom and said that court must show some leniency towards them.

"Most of the policemen have young children. Who will take care of them," one of the policemen's wife said in the court.

The court had Friday convicted 18 policemen for the cold blooded murder of Ranbir Singh, but acquitted one of them of the murder charge while convicting him for falsifying records.

Jaspal Singh Gosain, the head operator at city control room, was convicted under Section 218 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) (public servant framing incorrect record). He was sentenced to two years jail, but was let off as he has already spent his term while he was in judicial custody.

The convicted policemen are then inspector Santosh Jaiswal, sub-inspectors Gopal Dutt Bhatt, Rajesh Bisht, Neeraj Kumar, Nitin Chauhan and Chandra Mohan, constables Ajeet Singh, Satbir Singh, Sunil Saini, Chander Pal, Saurabh Nautiyal, Nagendra Nath, Vikas Chandra Baluni, Sanjay Rawat, Mohan Singh Rana, Inder Bhan Singh and Manoj Kumar besides Gosain.

The 18 policemen were charge sheeted by the CBI in connection with the Ranbir Singh case that rocked the hill state in July 2009.

The policemen were arrested after evidence showed that Ranbir, a resident of Ghaziabad, was gunned down in cold blood by the Uttarakhand Police. Following the staged shootout, the police claimed to have caught Ranbir and his companions on Mohini Road where they were allegedly "trying to commit some crime" July 3, 2009.

The court slapped seven policemen - Bhatt, Bisht, Neeraj Kumar, Chauhan, Chandra Mohan and Ajeet Singh - with a fine of Rs.50,000 while the remaining ten were asked to pay Rs.20,000.

"They have been charged with the allegations of killing deceased Ranbir Singh in a fake encounter by firing 29 bullets from a close range in furtherance of the conspiracy to kill him," the court said in its 121-page judgment.

"From the circumstances it is clear that the death of deceased Ranbir Singh, was caused with the intentions of causing his death by indiscriminate firing by the accused(Jaiswal, Bhatt, Bisht, Neeraj Kumar, Chauhan, Chandra Mohan and Ajeet Singh) and the offence of murder is made out against them."

The court observed that cause of death opined by postmortem report was shock and hemorrhage caused by injuries to the vital organs as a result of fire arms.

"In furtherance of said conspiracy, knowing that offences (of) abduction and murder had been committed, they prepared a false FIR showing that deceased Ranbir Singh had been killed in an encounter and same was done by them with the intention of screening themselves from legal punishment," the court noted.

On March 17, 2011, the trial was transferred from Dehradun to Delhi on the orders of the Supreme Court following Ranbir's father plea.