Chandigarh: Senior AAP leader and Kharar MLA, Kanwar Sandhu has expressed doubts over the veracity of police claims of the involvement of Jagtar Singh Johal alias Jaggi, a British citizen, in targeted killings in Punjab and has demanded that the Central government of India should intervene and a joint inquiry with the UK police should be conducted in the case.
Jagtar Singh Johal @ Jaggi was arrested from Rama Mandi in Jalandhar on November 4, 2017 by the Punjab Police. Punjab CM Amarinder Singh and police chief Suresh Arora later held a press conference claiming that with recent arrests, including the arrest of Jaggi, the cases of ‘target killings’ in Punjab were solved.
Journalist turned politician and senior leader of Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab said that the allegations against Jaggi were not convincing.
Expressing his views over social networking website Facebook, “I don’t know Jaggi Johal or his family personally, but on the face of it and having covered Punjab as a journalist for the past 35 years, I don’t find it convincing that a person from UK who comes here to get married would involved in the such matters here”.
Member of Punjab assembly from Kharar, Kanwar Sandhu said that the government of India must intervene and have a joint inquiry with UK Police into this episode.
“In case there is no substantial evidence against him, he should be freed and an apology tendered. In case, there is evidence of his involvement in the crime, the information should be shared with UK police and the government,” said Kanwar Sandhu.
Stating that he has been “noticing the anger, especially among people in UK, over the arrest of Jagtar Singh Jaggi”, Sandhu further said that he has been informed that a cross-party group of MPs of UK will be writing to the Indian government to free Johal.
Kanwar Sandhu said that that the case reminded him of the arrest of Amarjit Singh from Canada in 1980s in Bihar.
“Let us also not forget, Punjab Police still has certain elements who specialised in extra-judicial arrests and torture. Amarjit Singh was of course innocent, was released and is now a powerful federal minister in Canada,” he said.
“We all understand that the targeted killings were an effort to disturb peace and Punjab Police were under tremendous pressure to resolve the cases. It is satisfying that they have made some headway. But no innocent should be harassed…last of all a foreign national”, Kanwar Sandhu further note in his Facebook post.
Jagtar Singh Johal was born to a Punjabi couple and brought up in United Kingdom and has been living in Glasgow ever since.
The Johal family has an ancestral home in Patti Gaggar Mohalla of Jandiala Manjki village of Jalandhar. His grand-aunt, Gurmesh Kaur, who lives in that house said that Jaggi got married on October 18 at Nakodar and was about to go to Singapore with his wife when the police arrested him.
Jagtar Singh Jaggi’s council Advocate Jaspal Singh Manjhpur has made allegations against the Punjab for torturing Jaggi in the police custody. “Jaggi had told me during the court appearance that he was given electric shocks on nipples, ears and private parts during interrogation by the Punjab and his legs were forcibly stretched beyond normal stretch limits. We have put the fact on record and moved an application in the court of judicial magistrate in Baghapurana seeking medical examination of Jagtar Singh Jaggi from a board comprising at least 3 doctors/medical experts”, Advocate Manjhpur told SSN.
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