Cops on toes over Kathua case

The two Special Public Prosecutors — Santokh Singh Basra and Jagdeeshwar Kumar Chopra — engaged by the J&K government to take on the accused in the Kathua abduction, rape and murder case of a minor girl being heard in a Pathankot court, are a study in contrast.

Both the lawyers have their roots in Gurdaspur. While Basra is an eminent criminal lawyer, spoken highly within the legal fraternity, the laid-back Chopra has remained the Gurdaspur District Attorney before he was shifted to neighbouring Pathankot in the same capacity a few months ago. Apart from the Gurdaspur connection, they share nothing else in common.

When it came to getting security in the high profile case, Basra considered it to be anathema. He made his abhorrence clear in no uncertain terms. “When God is there to protect me, where is the need of policemen?” he quipped.

Chopra, on the other hand, mounted pressure on the Punjab Police to get some policemen to guard him. The cops studied the threat perception and came to the conclusion that he faced no threat at all. Chopra then filed a petition in the Supreme Court which finally ordered the J&K police to provide him with security. The man now has a spring in his step and smiles all the way to the court.

On the other hand, defence counsel Anil Kumar Sawhney claims that he is getting threats of all sorts on his Facebook page. “Despite all the threats, I am secure in the knowledge that God is with me,” he said.

That is the common thread between Basra and Sawhney who otherwise are on opposing sides once they enter the court room.

Whenever there is a talk of Pathankot, the discussion invariably shifts to the Kathua rape case which is being heard in the court of Dr Tejwinder Singh, District and Sessions Judge. With the Supreme Court (SC) monitoring the case on a day to day basis, the Pathankot police are not taking any risks as far as the security of the accused, defence and prosecution lawyers and witnesses is concerned. The security outside the district court complex is tight. Each and every visitor or litigant entering the premises is frisked and searched many times over. When the case was being heard in Kathua, the BJP had staged protests with the Mufti Mehbooba government even sacking a minister Chaudhury Lal Singh for getting involved in a protest. The Pathankot police say they do not want an encore here and hence have pulled out all the stops to ensure no untoward incident takes place. SSP Vivek Sheel Soni has made it a point to take a round of the court premises almost everyday.

Security in the evenings on the Pathankot-Gurdaspur National Highway remains tight. Reason is that all the seven accused have been shifted to the Gurdaspur Central Jail. Once the proceedings are over, a Pathankot police vehicle escorts the accused back to Gurdaspur. Jail Superintendent Karamjit Singh Sandhu is a much harried man these days. He and his staff have been asked to make foolproof arrangements to ensure that accused are not victimised in the jail. Defence lawyer Anil Kumar Sawhney claims that the Supreme Court has ordered that “the accused shall be treated as innocent till proven guilty.”

“That is why the jail staff have been asked to provide proper facilities to the accused. If they don’t, they will actually be violating the SC directives,” he said.

Contributed by Ravi Dhaliwal