Fast track court convicts notorious criminal for 3 murders

Una, Sep 5 (UNI) A Fast Track Court in Una district of Himachal Pradesh today convicted murder accused Gurjent Singh, presently lodged in a Bathinda jail in Punjab, for murdering three people a few years ago.

The sentence would be pronounced later under section 302 IPC.

Six other accused had already been convicted, but Gurjent, who had escaped from the Kanda jail a few years ago, had been declared a proclaimed offender by the court.

The case was reopened after his arrest by the Bathinda police a few months ago.

Two rival gangs of drug peddlers had a bloody encounter at the Una-Pirnigaha road on the night of 10 September 1999, resulting in the death of three local youth, identified Raj Kumar, Rajiv Kumar and Santokh Singh.

Main accused Amrish Rana and Gurjent Singh were arrested along with five others.

After their arrest, the Gurjent and Amrish duo were lodged in the Una sub jail and continued to remain in news for beating up jail warders and fellow inmates, stealing a parallel telephone line from the adjacent consumer court into the prison barracks and breaking jail.

While at the Una sub jail, the duo were also accused of calling a murder witness into the barrack, killing him there, carrying the body on a scooter to a Swan river tributary in village Khad and disposing it there before returning to the 'safety' of the prison barrack before dawn.

The two were then shifted to the Kanda jail in Shimla district from where Gurjent had made good his escape.

Meanwhile, Amrish Rana, who had bitten off the ear of a Dharamsala prison warder, had escaped from a public toilet in Una while being brought here for a case hearing.

The two were traced in Bathinda a few months ago by a Una police party and were arrested by the Bathinda police.

The two are currently lodged in Bathinda jail, facing charges of planning a dacoity.

UNI