New Delhi, July 07: Three days since a youth from Ghaziabad was gunned down by the police in Dehradun, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank on Monday said he is ready for a CBI probe even as experts questioned credibility of the ‘encounter’ claims.
A resident of Indirapuram near Delhi, Ranbir Singh, 24, was shot on Friday evening after he allegedly picked a fight with a sub-inspector and ran fled after snatching his revolver during a routine inspection drill ahead of President Pratibha Patil’s visit to the hill state. Calling it a fake encounter, Singh’s family claimed he was innocent and had gone to Dehradun to join a private company there.
Indicating that he might order a CBI probe into the case, Nishank on Monday said: “We want to proceed in a transparent manner and what matters most is that the victim’s parents must be satisfied.
I have complete confidence in the high-level probe ordered but I will not hesitate to order a probe by any other agency if they (parents) want so.”
Nishank had initially ordered a probe by the state Crime Branch-CID.
Meanwhile, experts continue to raise eyebrows at the police’s ‘encounter’ claim: first, where are the two other youths the police said were riding the bike with Singh that evening? Questions are also being raised about how the two managed to flee if the police assertion that they, too, were hit by bullets.
Former Dehradun Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Amit Sinha had made that claim before he was moved to Police Headquarters on Sunday. Sinha had also said that an alert has been sounded in all medical establishments in the region about the injured absconding youths.
–Agencies