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He got High Court to order CBI
probe into fake encounters
Now they want him to stop pursuing the case, strike a compromise
WSN Network
JALANDHAR:
Here
is the man who had dared to stand up for truth, and dug in for long.
Satwant Singh Manak, who got the
Punjab and
Haryana High Court to order a CBI probe into 10 fake encounters
carried out by Punjab Police, has now said the cops were
pressurising him to strike a compromise.
“Striking a
compromise” is an Indian police euphemism for pressurizing one or
both parties to a dispute to agree to an out of court settlement
and not pursue the legal path.
Manak, a former
cop himself, had testified that the Sikh Students Federation
activist Satwant Singh Sodhi, though not involved in any terrorist
activity, was tortured to death by the cops. Manak named seven cops
in his petition. Now, he says, he was approached by representatives
of an ADGP and an SP to stop pursuing the case in the High Court.
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Court too under scanner
Of the many
ways to thwart the course of justice, one is not to allow the
case to even come up for hearing. This is what happened in this
case too. Now, the Registry of the Punjab and Haryana High
Court has come under the scanner of the High Court itself as
Justice Ranjit Singh has asked for an explanation for a
three-year delay in listing the case since 2005. Manak was
dismissed from service by framing him in three fake cases upon
his refusal to become a party in corrupt practices of his
colleagues. He was later acquitted in all the three cases. |
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Manak had fought
a lone legal battle for 14 years after which the HC ordered a CBI
probe into extra-judicial killings during the days of militancy. He
had filed a petition in the HC in 1994 seeking a probe into fake
encounters and compensation for the affected families. Justice
Ranjit Singh had given the order in April. Manak claimed the cops
had been prevailing upon counsels hired by him not to pursue the
case.
21
May,
2008
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