Dehradun fake encounter: 11 cops surrender, sent to jail

Eleven of the 18 Uttarakhand police personnel, accused in the 2009 fake encounter case of MBA student Ranbir Singh in Dehradun, on Tuesday surrendered before a Delhi court which sent them to jail.

The accused policemen surrendered before Special Central Bureau of Investigation Judge V K Maheshwari in pursuance of the non-bailable warrants issued against them in May this year. "They be taken in custody and sent to judicial custody," the court said.

The accused cops who surrendered today include the then constables Satbir Singh, Sunil Saini, Chander Pal, Saurabh Nautiyal, Nagendra Nath, Vikas Chandra Baluni, Sanjay Rawat, Mohan Singh Rana, Inder Bhan Singh and Manoj Kumar and Head operator at city control room Jaspal Singh Gosain.

The constables are among the 18 policemen chargesheeted by the CBI in connection with Ranbir Singh encounter case that rocked the hill state in July 2009.

The other accused in the case are presently lodged in Tihar Jail. They include then inspector Santosh Jaiswal, sub-inspectors Gopal Dutt Bhatt, Rajesh Bisht, Neeraj Kumar, Nitin Chauhan and Chandra Mohan and constable Ajeet Singh. They were arrested in wake of evidence that 22-year-old Singh, an MBA student from Ghaziabad, was allegedly gunned down by the Uttarakhand police after being caught at Mohini Road where he and his companions were allegedly trying to commit some crime on July 3, 2009.

The court fixed July 4, the next date of hearing and also allowed the plea of these 11 accused that they be kept together in jail as they are police personnel and apprehend fear from other inmates.

The case was transferred to Delhi by the Supreme Court on the plea of Ranbir's father Ravindra Singh. The court had issued non-bailable warrants against them to ensure their presence before it.

Ranbir's father had alleged that his son had gone to Dehradun in search of a job where he was arrested by the police on July 3, 2009 on pretext of being involved in some robbery. He had alleged that on the same day, 29 bullets were pumped into his body and the incident was passed off as an encounter.

All the 18 policemen have been charged for various offences such as murder, kidnapping, criminal conspiracy, destruction of evidence and public servant framing incorrect record.