High-level Judicial Inquiry Demanded Into Youth Ranjit Singh’s Encounter – CPI

Mansa, March 1

Taking serious note of the killing of youth Ranjit Singh by staging a fake encounter in Gurdaspur district, CPI district secretary Comrade Krishan Chauhan and AITUC state leader Advocate Kulwinder Uddat have strongly condemned it in harsh words. Leaders stated that granting Punjab government open license to police for extrajudicial killings in the name of eliminating gangsters is a highly dangerous practice, which all justice-loving, democratic forces need to take serious note of. No youth is born a gangster or criminal; it is the ruling class politics that nurtures and patronizes thug gangs for their political interests.

Instead of addressing the root causes of gangsters’ activities, the Bhagwant Mann government is creating an atmosphere of police terror and fear in society by staging encounters of alleged gangsters. Even those alleged gangsters whom the police can easily arrest are being killed or injured by police officers with the government’s patronage. This is actually part of a larger conspiracy to create an atmosphere of terror and advance towards police rule to suppress the organized power of the people.

All circumstances—from the police taking the youth from his home, showing him fleeing during weapon recovery, acquiring weapons and firing, staging an encounter, and then taking away the CCTV footage—are completely under question. In fact, to cover up the real reasons behind the suspicious deaths of two policemen in that area, a fake encounter story was fabricated, and an innocent youth was murdered. They demanded a high-level inquiry by a sitting High Court judge into the ‘encounter’, that the Bhagwant Mann government stop the drama of encounters, and strict action be taken against the officers who staged the encounter.