Mar
11
Cross-examination continues in Khalra trial
March 11, 2005 | Comments Off on Cross-examination continues in Khalra trial
On March 2, the court dismissed two applications demanding that KPS Gill be issued summons in the Jaswant Singh Khalra trial. KPS Gill was the Punjab Director-General of Police at the time of Khalra’s disappearance, and has been implicated by the testimony of key witness Kuldeep Singh. The two applications had been filed by Kuldeep Singh and Shaheed Bhagat Singh Brigade through Naresh Kumar. The court dismissed the applications on the grounds that only the prosecution or the complainant in the case could file such applications.
Although Kuldeep Singh recently said that Khalra’s widow had asked him not to include KPS Gill in his deposition because of the strength of the IPS (Indian Police Service) lobby, he said that she should have filed the application.
Kuldeep Singh’s cross-examination continued on March 7. The defence asked about the complaint he had recently filed before a magistrate at Amritsar. He answered that he had filed the complaint under duress as he was being threatened by the accused, including the now deceased Ashok Kumar and Rachpal Singh.
During his cross-examination on March 9, Kuldeep Singh explained his earlier retraction of his statement to the CBI that implicated a number of senior police officials. He stated that he retracted his statement under pressure from the accused police personnel and the Punjab Police assigned to guard him.
Kuldeep Singh said the accused police personnel forced him to give a statement to the press that he had been offered Rs 50,000 by Mrs Paramjit Kaur Khalra, wife of the human rights activist. He said due to pressure, he had also got a case registered against Mrs Khalra.
The witness said he built up courage to stand by the truth as well as his convictions only after he was provided CRPF security. He said once CRPF security personnel were provided to him, he decided to stand by the truth.
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