Hawara acquitted in 24-year-old RDX case

Legal Correspondent

Ludhiana, November 22

The Court of Additional Sessions Judge Arunvir Vashishta today acquitted Jagtar Singh Hawara, an assassin of former Chief Minister Beant Singh, in a 24-year-old case of alleged huge recovery of highly explosive RDX.

Pronouncing the verdict, the court held that the prosecution failed to prove the charges leveled against the accused.

He was facing accusation of possessing 5 kg of RDX, AK-56 rifle with magazine, 60 cartridges, remote control and wireless set.

As per the prosecution, the accused had confessed to have concealed the RDX and other things during interrogation in an another FIR of bomb blast near Clock Tower, Ludhiana. He was stated to have confessed that he had concealed the explosive and other things in the Kundan Puri area.

In pursuance of his disclosure statement under Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act, a police party had taken Hawara to that place and got the explosives recovered.

Thereafter, a new FIR was registered against Hawara on December 23, 1995, at the Kotwali police.

However, the accused had pleaded innocent. Defence lawyer Jaspal Singh Manjpur had stressed that around half of the alleged reocovered RDX was not produced in the court, which destroyed the prosecution case.

Moreover, there was no need of lodging any new FIR when the accused was already in police custody in some other case. The recoveries were made on the basis of disclosure statement recorded under Section 27 of the Evidence Act in the bomb blast case, so he could be tried only in that case.

The non-appearance of investigation officer of the case Inspector Gurinderjit Singh also proved fatal for prosecution case. He had retired since long and stated to be settled abroad and not keeping good health.

The defence lawyer also assailed the prosecution story with the claim that there were glaring contradictions regarding the mode of recovery of the explosive substance in the testimony of witnesses.