6 years on, Machhiwara resident gets 10 yrs’ RI for abduction & carjacking

Ludhiana: A local court has sentenced a Machhiwara man to 10-year rigorous imprisonment for abduction and carjacking he committed six years ago. The court of additional sessions judge, Shiv Mohan Garg, has also slapped a fine of Rs 18,500 on the convict, who will have to further undergo rigorous imprisonment for three months, three weeks and five days in case of payment default. Maninder Singh of Mohalla Bazigar has been convicted under sections 365, 379-B, 427 , 279, 337, and 338 of the Indian Penal Code. The case dates back to August 11, 2017, when the victim, Tejinder Singh, had gone to the cremation ground near Jamalpur to cremate his stillborn grandchild. As per the prosecution, Tejinder was sitting in the passenger seat of the car being driven by his son Harjot Singh. As the family was carrying the child’s body, they drove inside the cremation ground. Tejinder had told the police that after the cremation, his family members went to a nearby gaushala, while he returned to the car. “Maninder approached me and asked to park the car somewhere else. Since there was no driver present, he offered to move the car while I sat next to him. However, instead of parking it on the side, Maninder drove the car out of the cremation ground,” he had mentioned in his police complaint. “When I tried to stop him, he started fighting with me. He threatened to throw me out of the moving car and kill me when I raised the alarm. He then turned towards Chandigarh Road, but rammed into a three-wheeler, injuring a passenger named Amrik Singh. Passers-by gathered at the accident site nabbed Maninder and handed him over to the police,” Tejinder had stated. During the trial, the accused pleaded not guilty and the defence counsel argued that a false FIR was registered against Maninder. “He has not committed any offence. Prosecution’s story is totally false and improbable. No snatching of car or abduction of complainant was done by the accused,” the defence counsel said, further arguing that there was no independent witness to the incident. The court, after going through evidence on record, held, “If there is no independent corroboration to the statement of the complainant, that hardly matters as the accused while committing the offence has been caught at the spot.” “Testimony of the complainant is not self-contradictory. When the offences are proved, motive is not important. So, from the entire evidence of the prosecution, it is proved that on August 11, 2017, in the cremation ground Jamalpur, the accused had abducted complainant Tejinder Singh after snatching his car by using force and wrongfully restraining him, and drove away from thcremation ground by rash and negligent driving,” the court remarked. It held that when the complainant was resisting the act of the accused, he issued threats to kill him and rammed the car into an auto-rickshaw and caused injuries to Amrik Singh, one of the passengers, and thereafter he was caught.