Delhi: CP Fake encounter victims' family to get compensation

New Delhi, Jul 4: On Monday, Jul 4 the Delhi High Court announced an award of Rs 15 lakhs each as compensation to the family of Late Pradeep Goyal and Jagjit Singh, who were gunned down allegedly in a fake encounter by the Delhi Police in Connaught Place 14 years ago.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has to pay this amount to the respective families in six weeks.

Pradeep Goyal and Jagjit Singh, two businessmen were travelling from east Delhi to Connaught Place on March 31, 1997 when a police team led by then ACP SS Rathi shot them down and then hurriedly called a press conference in the evening to claim that the gangsters had been killed.

But, later it was clarified that both the businessmen were mistaken as gangsters. The police claimed they had opened fire on the two businessmen as per a tip off. Yasin, a dreaded gangster was to visit CP around the same time in a Maruti Esteem car that bore a particular number. Goyal too was travelling in an Esteem car that day which made him an easy suspect.

Though the then police commissioner Nikhil Kumar accepted his men's blunder, he claimed it was a case of 'mistaken identity'. Neema, Pradeep's wife was far from convinced. "If it was a case of mistaken identity, they would not have shot him in the head point blank. In an encounter you shoot at the leg, don"t you?" she said in 2007.

A Delhi court in October 2007 sentenced 10 Delhi Police officials, including former assistant commissioner SS Rathi, to life imprisonment for killing the two businessmen.

OneIndia News