Jaswinder's death: MC under cloud

CHANDIGARH: The investigation into the death of a pregnant UT police constable Jaswinder Kaur reached a decisive stage on Friday, almost a year after she lost her life by falling into an overflowing manhole in Sector 30, as the crime branch filed its challan in a local court against eight municipal corporation employees.
The probe, which is marked by several twists and a blatant cover-up by MC authorities to save their skin and turn the needle of suspicion against Kaur's husband Gurnam Singh, has held the MC guilty of criminal negligence (Section 304A of IPC) resulting in her death.The accused are junior engineer Rajiv Kumar, work munshi Prem Nath and sewer men Jai Pal, Raj Kumar, Ram Pratap, Lahna Ram, Vijay Pal and Subhash.
If the challan is set to ruffle feathers of the MC authorities, it is bound to give a breather to Gurnam. As some reports pointed a finger at him and alleged foul play in his wife's death, he had to go through extensive forensic investigation including brain mapping, which was never done before in the city's crime history. However, CFSL gave him a clean chit in the lie-detector test as well as brain mapping report.
The police investigation also found nothing against Gurnam, who and whose sister were with Jaswinder when she fell into the manhole on that rainy night. The probe has established that it was negligence of the MC authorities who left the manhole uncovered that led to her death.
The MC had initially taken action against two of its employees, including JE Rajiv Kumar, but then it sided with them and even conducted an "unscientific" dummy test to help the accused out. Its own inquiry gave them a clean chit. The CFSL had rejected the dummy test saying it could not replace a human body, which floats in the water while the dummy was all solid material. The CFSL's own dummy test had established that a human body falling in the manhole could come out in Phase XI, Mohali, where Jaswinder's body had reached travelling a distance of over 8.5 km.