Chandigarh: Punjab police has arrested the Army jawan, who claimed to be the sole witness to the killing of the four of his colleagues inside the Bathinda military station in Punjab on April 12, on the charges of murdering them.
Police said on Monday that the accused army jawan, Gunner Desai Mohan, had killed the four soldiers in a premeditated plan as per which, he first stole an Insas (Indian small arms system) rifle and bullets on April 10, hid them for two days and subsequently killed them on April 12.
The accused confessed his crime
The police also said that the accused who was on guard duty at the officers’ mess on April 12, had gone to the barrack - where the four soldiers were sleeping in different rooms – twice around 3 am to ensure they were asleep, before killing them.
Bathinda senior superintendent of police Gulneet Khurana and Col Animesh Sharan from the Bathinda military station, told newspersons that the accused had confessed his crime which he held was in retaliation to the "repeated harassment and humiliation'' caused to him by his four colleagues. On the question about the nature of the harassment, Khurana categorically said that it would be too early to confirm the kind of harassment caused to him by his four colleagues.
On the question whether the accused had complained to his superiors about any harassment being caused to him, he said that it was a matter of further probe into the case.
Elaborating upon the internal investigation so far, Col Sharan said that when the Insas rifle, its 20 cartridges and another eight bullets of a light machine gun (LMG) were reported to be missing on April 10, the military base was put on high alert and now the matter was further investigated under court of inquiry (CoI).
Rifle, LMG Cartridges recovered
Stating that the police had recovered the rifle used in the crime as well as six cartridges of the LMG from a sewage pit dumped by the accused in the compound, the SSP Khurana said that the police had already recovered the 19 empty shells of the Insas rifle from the spot of the crime on April 12 only.
The SSP said that the police investigating team had picked holes in accused Desai Mohan’s inconsistent statements right from day one. He was arrested late last night after the police had summoned four Army personnel including him for questioning, SSP Khurana said.
It may be recalled that Desai Mohan had claimed in his statements that he had seen two masked men in ``kurta pyjama’’ carrying a rifle and an axe who ran towards the forest area of the Army base. The police noticed after the post mortem that the slain soldiers’ bodies did not have any injuries caused by any sharp-edged weapon (axe). Nor had any other person on duty, nor any CCTV camera installed around all the exit points in the said area had spotted any movement of men in civvies around that time, hence the suspicion on his statements, police said.
The accused Desai Mohan was presented before a Bathinda court on Monday afternoon where he sent him to police remand till April 20.
It may be recalled that the four soldiers killed on April 12 were - Sagar Banne, Kamlesh R, Santosh Nagral and Yogesh Kumar J, all of them from 80 Medium Regiment.
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