‘Faux pas’ denies police gangster Lawrence Bishnoi’s custody

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, April 7

An error by the police in not submitting the ‘correct’ address of gangster Lawrence Bishnoi in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM), Faridkot, has hampered its investigation in a murder case. For the past around 20 days, the police have been facing a tough time in getting the custody of Bishnoi for his questioning in the killing of District Youth Congress chief Gurlal Singh Bhalwan here due to this ‘mistake’.

The police have nominated 13 persons, including Bishnoi ,in the murder of Bhalwan who was killed on February 18. The police have already arrested nine persons in the case.

Facing as many as 19 criminal cases in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh, Bishnoi is presently lodged in the High Security Jail in Ajmer. On March 16, the police had approached the CJM court here for Bishnoi’s production warrants from Ajmer. In its application, the police wrongly mentioned Bishnoi’s location as the Central Jail, Ajmer, while he was in the High Security Jail, Ajmer. The police did not know Bishnoi had been shifted to the High Security Jail some time back after it was found that he was using mobile phones. For giving the wrong address, the police team returned empty-handed from Ajmer.