A special CBI court has summoned two officers from the Punjab Police to appear for trial on May 1, concerning the suspected custodial death of a woman from Ludhiana that occurred in 2017. This development comes as the state government has declined to provide prosecution approval against two other involved officers, Additional DCP Kuldeep Sharma and former ACP Rupinder Kaur Bhatti, who are also listed as defendants in the CBI’s chargesheet.<\/p>\n
The court, presided over by Special Judicial Magistrate Karanvir Singh Maju, has directed Sub-Inspector Dalvir Singh, the then Station House Officer (SHO) of Dugri police station, and ASI Manjeet Singh, who served as the SHO’s reader, to stand trial on various charges. These include wrongful confinement, willfully disregarding legal protocols during investigations, fabricating evidence, and criminal conspiracy, among other serious allegations.<\/p>\n
This ruling was issued on March 23, but the details were only released to the public recently. The case revolves around the death of Ramandeep Kaur, who, along with her fianc\u00e9 Mukul Garg, was apprehended by Dugri police on August 4, 2017, on suspicions of ATM data theft and fraud.<\/p>\n
Ramandeep was discovered hanging in a washroom at the police station in the early hours of August 5. Garg has claimed that she endured torture during her interrogation, while the police maintained that she had died by suicide using her dupatta.<\/p>\n
The CBI presented evidence to the court indicating that medical experts concluded Ramandeep’s death resulted from ante-mortem hanging, categorizing it as a suicide. They noted that the injuries on her wrists appeared to be self-inflicted using a kitchen knife from the area where she was held overnight at the Dugri police station.<\/p>\n
The investigation further revealed significant breaches of legal conduct by the Dugri police, including unlawful detention aimed at extracting confessions, tampering with Ramandeep’s signatures on arrest documents, and backdating entries to suggest that both individuals were arrested during the night of August 4-5 at 12:30 am.<\/p>\n
Moreover, it was highlighted that both Mukul and Ramandeep were unjustly implicated in a specific FIR that was originally filed against unidentified individuals. Subsequent witnesses, who had initially identified them, later recanted their statements, undermining the credibility of the Ludhiana police’s claims.<\/p>\n
The CBI asserted that the serious legal violations occurred under the direction of both PPS officers, stating that Sub-Inspector Dalbir Singh unlawfully detained both Ramandeep and Garg at the police station on August 4 at the request of Bhatti and Sharma to extract confessions related to cybercrime cases.<\/p>\n
In a related development, Alok Shekhar, the additional chief secretary for home and justice, has opted not to grant prosecution sanction against Sharma and Bhatti. In an order dated January 16, 2026, Shekhar noted that the comments from the Director General of Police (DGP) of Punjab concluded there was no basis for culpability against the two officers, asserting that the CBI had not presented any new evidence to warrant prosecution.<\/p>\n
The CBI’s investigation indicated that Bhatti and Sharma had directed the SHO to summon Ramandeep and Garg in order to investigate their alleged involvement in cybercrime. Both officers were reportedly present during the interrogation following a post-sunset raid and remained until after midnight, suggesting their complicity in the unlawful detention and interrogation.<\/p>\n
In contrast, the Punjab home department’s ruling on denying prosecution stated that there was no evidence of prior coordination or conspiracy between the officers and the accused individuals, arguing that mere presence at the police station does not equate to criminal conspiracy in the absence of malicious intent.<\/p>\n
Additionally, three other individuals initially implicated in this matter \u2014 ASI Sukhdev Singh and constables Amandeep Kaur and Rajwinder Kaur \u2014 have been released from the case due to insufficient evidence and are now witnesses.<\/p>\n
Mukul Garg, who has been advocating for justice, expressed to The Indian Express that their wedding was planned for October 2017, and Ramandeep’s death drastically altered the course of his life. Following her passing, Garg petitioned the Punjab and Haryana High Court for a CBI investigation, claiming that both he and his fiancee were mistreated while in police custody. A Special Investigation Team led by IPS V. Neerja was subsequently appointed by the High Court and found that four police officers were negligent in their duties, which allowed for Ramandeep’s suicide.<\/p>\n
On June 13, 2019, the Punjab Police filed an FIR against the four officers \u2014 Dalvir Singh, Sukhdev Singh, Rajwinder Kaur, and Amandeep Kaur \u2014 under Section 304-A, which pertains to causing death due to negligence. An affidavit submitted to the High Court by then ACP Jashandeep Singh Gill on December 3, 2019, revealed that the Dugri police had forged Ramandeep\u2019s signature on the arrest memo, which did not match her authentic signature according to forensic analysis, leading to the inclusion of forgery charges in the FIR.<\/p>\n
Following a High Court order on March 11, 2024, the case was transferred to the CBI, which filed a new FIR on May 10, 2024, and sought prosecution approval from the Punjab government against the two senior officers after concluding its investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A special CBI court has summoned two officers from the Punjab Police to appear for trial on May 1, concerning the suspected custodial death of a woman from Ludhiana that occurred in 2017. This development comes as the state government has declined to provide prosecution approval against two other involved officers, Additional DCP Kuldeep Sharma […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[78,1400,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-cities","category-in-city-others","category-india"],"yoast_head":"\n