Punjab's Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav on Thursday appeared before the Punjab and Haryana High Court after it took suo motu cognisance of the controversial police encounter that claimed the life of 19-year-old Ranjit Singh in Gurdaspur district on 25 February. A division bench of Justices Anupinder Singh Grewal and Deepak Manchanda had directed the DGP to personally appear before it via video conferencing. The court has asked the Punjab Police to file a detailed reply on the sequence of events within two weeks.
In Punjab, the word “encounter” carries a heavy and complicated legacy. During the militancy period of the 1980s and 1990s, extrajudicial killings became a tool of counterinsurgency, leaving a shadow over policing that remains today. The Ranjit Singh case in Gurdaspur, officially described as an exchange of fire, has revived memories of that era.
In the early hours before sunrise, near Purana Shala in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district, gunfire ended the life of 19-year-old Ranjit Singh.
Police described it as a pre-dawn “exchange of fire.” Ranjit, they said, was one of three men involved in the killing of Assistant Sub-Inspector Gurnam Singh and Home Guard Ashok Kumar, who had been shot dead days earlier at a border checkpost. According to the official account, officers had taken Ranjit for a recovery operation when he allegedly opened fire, prompting retaliation.
He was declared dead shortly after.
A third accused, Dilawar Singh, is currently in police custody. Another man, Inderjit Singh, is said to be absconding.
But even as the encounter was presented as a breakthrough, fresh questions began to surface.