As many as 19 policemen were sentenced by a CBI court here Thursday to life imprisonment in the case of killing of a gurdwara sewadar in a staged shootout in 1992.
Seventeen of the cops will serve the sentence since two have already died of natural causes.
The case goes back to 1992, when the convicted policemen belonging to the Uttar Pradesh police abducted Jaswinder Singh alias Jassa, a “Sewadar” (worker) at Gurdwara Rakabganj in New Delhi and shot him dead in a staged shootout in Bijnore district of Uttar Pradesh.
The cops claimed to have recovered an AK-56 assault rifle and a double-barrelled gun from Jassa’s possession. They further claimed that Jassa had robbed the double-barrelled gun from a local man.
After the news reached Delhi, Jassa’s relative filed a writ petition before the Supreme Court in which he claimed that his relative Jaswinder was abducted by the Uttar Pradesh police and was shot dead in a staged gunbattle. On his request, the court ordered the case to be investigated by the CBI court in 1993.
