Multani case: Ex-DGP Sumedh Saini appears before SIT

Former Punjab DGP Sumedh Singh Saini on Monday appeared before the Punjab police SIT in connection with the 1991 Balwant Singh Multani disappearance case.

Chandigarh:Former Punjab DGP Sumedh Singh Saini on Monday appeared before the Punjab police SIT in connection with the 1991 Balwant Singh Multani disappearance case.

Saini was summoned to join the investigation at the Mataur police station in Mohali. He reached the police station at around 11 am to appear before the Special Investigation Team and came out at around 1:30 pm. To queries by media persons after he came out after being questioned, Saini said, I will speak at length some other time."

The former Director General of Police had last appeared before the SIT on September 28. However, on September 30, he had failed to appear before the police. Saini was booked in May in connection with the disappearance of Multani in 1991 when he was working as a junior engineer with the Chandigarh Industrial and Tourism Corporation.

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The Supreme Court had granted him interim protection from arrest in this matter. The police had added murder charge under section 302 of the IPC in the FIR in the Multani disappearance case after two former Chandigarh police personnel--former UT police Inspector Jagir Singh and former ASI Kuldeep Singh, who are also co-accused, turned approver.

Saini, a 1982-batch IPS officer, was the youngest DGP in the country when he was appointed the state police chief in 2012. He was removed from the DGP's post in 2015 after protests erupted following sacrilege incidents. Saini retired in 2018.

Multani, who was a resident of Mohali, was picked up by the police after the terrorist attack on Saini, who was then the senior superintendent of police in Chandigarh, in 1991. However, the police had later claimed that Multani, son of a former IAS officer, had escaped from police custody of Qadian police in Gurdaspur.

Saini and six others were booked on the complaint of Balwant Multani's brother, Palwinder Singh Multani, who is a resident of Jalandhar. The case was registered against them under sections 364 (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence), 344 (wrongful confinement), 330 (voluntarily causes hurt) and 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code at Mataur police station in Mohali.

PTI