Mansa: Only hours after Punjab govt handed over investigation into the murder of anti-drug activist Parvinder Singh Jhota to CBI and Union home minister Amit Shah promised the bereaved family swift justice, a team from the central agency arrived in Mansa around midnight on Tuesday to register an FIR and kick off the probe.The officers’ first stop at midnight was Mansa City-2 police station where the initial case was registered. The CBI team, led by a DIG-level officer, tried to recreate the crime scene at accused Ashwani Kumar’s pharmacy, which was partly demolished by the administration and then razed by a mob, potentially destroying evidence.They also visited Jhota’s family, and are learnt to have requested them to allow the postmortem to be conducted at PGIMER Chandigarh. All day, there was uncertainty over whether the family and Insaf Committee had finally agreed to the postmortem.Rumours began circulating soon after the CBI team arrived in Mansa. At the civil hospital, word shot around that Jhota’s kin had agreed to the autopsy. Protesters, who have been holding a morcha outside the civil hospital mortuary for over a week, refused to believe it, saying they hadn’t heard from the family yet.When Jhota’s wife Manpreet Kaur heard of the rumours, she rushed to the protest site and made an emotional address: “It pains me that unverified issues are being forwarded without taking a version of the family or the Insaf Committee. Rumours are being spread that the family has agreed to the postmortem. It’s untrue. We only met the CBI team but haven’t signed any document nor given our consent for postmortem. The Insaf Committee will look into this. Even if it agrees, we will still take the consent of the protesters.”She urged them not to be misled by rumours. “I am here to get everyone’s views. If the protesters are ready, then the matter will be placed before the Insaf Committee before any decision is taken,” she said. The Insaf Committee is expected to take a call on the postmortem on Thursday.While this was going on at the hospital, CBI officials took along experts from Chandigarh-based Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) and visited various places in Mansa, including the razed medical store owned by accused Ashwani Kumar.Manpreet Kaur said the family was “pained” at the demolition of the medical store. “It’s like destroying crucial evidence in the case. We never demanded that the accused’s shop and house be pulled down,” she said. Action committee member Gurlabh Singh Mahal said they will ask the agency to look into the demolition of Kumar’s medical store and house as they were ‘case property’ and evidence might have been destroyed.The investigators also visited a nearby shoe store where Jhota tried to take shelter after being shot, and it’s there that he took his last breaths. They collected samples from both scenes and spoke to several people who own shops nearby and were present on Oct 13 when Jhota was gunned down in full public view.CBI officers declined to speak to mediapersons but it’s learnt that they collected records pertaining to the case. A fresh FIR has been registered at CBI Special Crime Branch police station in Chandigarh under BNS sections 103(1) (murder) 109 (attempted to murder), 118(1) (voluntarily causing hurt), 61(2) (criminal conspiracy) and 3(5) common intention, and Sections 25 and 27 of Arms Act.
