{Phagwara ‘double murder’} Bodies still missing, accused concocting stories, say cops

Two days after a history-sheeter, Harvinder Singh, 35, was arrested in connection with a suspected double murder, the Kapurthala police are yet to get a concrete breakthrough in recovering the bodies of a lawyer and his woman companion in Phagwara.

Deputy inspector general of police (DIG), Jalandhar range, Naveen Singla said Harvinder, a hardcore criminal, was not cooperating in the police interrogation. “He has been concocting multiple stories related to the incident and has not disclosed the locations where he possibly dumped both the bodies,” Singla said.

The police, in a joint operation with the Gujarat police, had arrested Harvinder from a dhaba at Lakadia village, 52 km from Bhuj, on Monday. He is the key suspect behind the kidnapping and murder of lawyer Sanjeev Kumar and his friend Anju Pal, who have been missing from Phagwara since April 19.

Harvinder, alias Pinder, was serving life imprisonment for the murder of then Moga deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Balraj Singh Gill and his woman friend Monika Kapila in a Ludhiana farmhouse in 2012. He was released on parole two months ago and was to report back to prison on April 23.

According to DIG Singla, the preliminary investigation suggested that Anju Pal was married to Harvinder but later separated and began living with Sanjeev. “There appeared to be no forced entry and exit in the flat where both the victims were putting up. Initially, both Anju Pal and Harvinder planned to kidnap and eliminate Sanjeev, but later Harvinder possibly changed his mind and killed her after suspecting her of double crossing him,” DIG Singla said.

The police have already arrested three accomplices of Harvinder for committing the crime. Though the police are yet to recover the bodies, they have confiscated the lawyer’s Hyundai i20 car from Ludhiana.

According to the police probe so far, Harvinder is learnt to have confessed to kidnapping Sanjeev and Anju on the night of April 19 and murdering them the next day. He fled Punjab and went to Kutch, where he took up a job at a roadside eatery.

In his complaint at the Phagwara sadar police station on April 23, Sanjeev’s father Sudesh Lal said his son had gone to meet his friend Anju at her seventh-floor flat in a high-rise building near Paragpur village on the Jalandhar-Ludhiana national highway. Anju was staying there with her 16-year-old daughter from an earlier marriage.

The accused, along with his three accomplices, managed to sneak into the building and barged into her flat on April 19. Sanjeev and Anju were taken away at gunpoint after the girl was confined to a room. On April 23, security staff of the building managed to enter the apartment and rescue the teenager.

Criminal background

Harvinder was convicted for the high-profile murder of then Moga DSP (headquarters) Balraj Singh Gill and his friend Monika Kapila during a robbery attempt at an industrialist’s farmhouse on Humbra Road near Ludhiana on February 1, 2012.

Six people were arrested. Harvinder was awarded life imprisonment in 2015. His accomplices got jail terms.