A Delhi court Sunday extended for three more days the police custody of Sukhdev Singh Namdhari who was booked for the murder of Hardeep Singh, brother of slain liquor baron Ponty Chadha.
Namdhari, a witness to the Nov 17 shootout at a farmhouse in south Delhi in which both the brothers were killed, has been booked under Indian Penal Code’s Section 302 (murder) for Hardeep’s killing.
Magistrate Sunil Beniwal extended Namdhari’s police custody till Dec 5 after investigators sought his custody to recover the vehicles used on the day of the incident at south Delhi’s Chhattarpur farmhouse and to trace other five accused.
Namdhari disclosed that his associates Hardayal Singh, Simranjeet Singh, Jasbir Singh, Balkar Singh and Baaj Singh had fled, police said.
“The matter is under investigation and more co-accused including those who have altered and cleaned the pistol have to be arrested in the present case. The accused has assured the police that he would accompany them to make their arrest possible, therefore, he is remanded in police custody till Dec 5,” the court said.
Presenting Namdhari before the court after the expiry of his police custody, the investigators said that he had said that he would accompany them to get the co-accused arrested.
“From the investigations conducted so far, it has been established that accused (Namdhari) has played a vital role in the conspiracy with the other co-accused who acted on his instructions,” the police plea said.
Opposing Namdhari’s police remand, his advocate R.S. Malik said the police had extracted Namdhari’s confessional statement and fabricated statements of witnesses.
“There is insufficient ground to extend Namdhari’s custody and he should be sent to judicial custody,” he said.
The police remand application said: “On interrogation of the accused and examining the witnesses it had been found that on the behest of the accused, co-accused armed with fire arms and other deadly weapons forcibly entered and took possession of the farmhouse at Chhattarpur.”
Namdhari was sacked as chairman of the Uttarakhand Minorities Commission after the Chadha brothers’ killings. He was arrested from his farmhouse in Uttarakhand Nov 23.
According to police, Namdhari killed Hardeep Nov 17 in Chhattarpur in a shootout and the pistol used for the killing was seized.
