Bijnor: Convicted in Hashimpura Massacre, missing UP policeman serving life sentence in Delhi's Tihar jail
Bijnor: In an embarrassing development for the Uttar Pradesh police, one of its constables who had gone on a month-long leave in November 2018, has now been found cooling his heels in Delhi's Tihar jail in connection with 1987 Hashimpura Massacre.
The UP police had been looking for the constable for the last five months.
According to a report in Times of India, the policeman, who was a Provincial Armed Constabulary personnel, has now been dismissed from service following a departmental inquiry. The convict policeman went on leave in November last year.
Kanwar Pal Singh was convicted by Delhi High Court in the infamous Hashimpura Massacre in which 42 Muslim men were shot dead in the night of 1987. The high court had reversed a trial court’s verdict which had acquitted 19 PAC jawans, three of whom died during the trial. The convicted PAC personnel had been sentenced for the rest of their lives.
The Muslim men were shot by policemen and thrown into two irrigation canals in Ghaziabad. The High Court had asked the convicted policemen to surrender in November, a week before Kanwar Pal Singh went on leave.
Initially, the UP police in April this year suspended Singh for failing to join duty three months after his absence. The Bijnor police was completely unaware of his conviction. Later, when Singh failed to turn up for the duty, the district police set a departmental inquiry to look into Singh's whereabouts.
“Constable Kanwar Pal Singh was posted here at Badhapur police station. A resident of Kirori village of Shamli, Singh went on a month-long leave on November 15 last year. When he failed to join back after his leave ended, the then SP had suspended him for dereliction of duty. An inquiry headed by a circle officer was set up to know his whereabouts,” the report quotes Bijnor SP (rural) Vishwajeet Srivastava as saying.
READ ON APP