Police say number plate on Beetle belongs to another car, launch probe in forgery angle

An officer said that they have now expanded their probe to find if the Beetle car was deliberately using a fake number plate.

An officer involved in the investigation of the case said that they had sought details of the registration plate of the Beetle from the Registration and Licensing Authority (RLA) of Mohali on Thursday.

A police officer said, “The registration number was issued on the name of businessman, Kamaljeet Singh, who is currently untraceable.

But the number was issued for a Volkswagen Polo car. There is a possibility that paperwork regarding transfer of the number from the Polo to the Beetle is pending with the RLA. But if that is not the case then this will amount to an act of fraud, cheating. Our investigations in the matter are ongoing.”

A senior police officer said, “We have sufficient evidence to know that the red coloured Bettle car is owned by Kamaljeet Singh. We are trying to trace his son, who we suppose was driving the car at the time of the accident. Around a dozen teams have been formed and they are working on the case. We will crack it soon.”

On Friday, the owner of the Beetle car, businessman Kamaljeet Singh, and his family, continued to be missing from their residence in Sector 21, Panchkula.

The police had raided the house on Thursday as well and returned empty handed.

On Friday too, the police visited the house twice but found no one but a household help present at the address.

A police officer said that one of the household helps had told them that Singh along with his wife had gone to Manali three days ago, but his son, Parambir Singh, had stayed back. Parambir is at present the prime suspect in the case, who police claim was driving the car that ran over seven people, killing three of them. Parambir has been absconding since Wednesday.

A policeman, who was part of Friday’s raiding team, said, “We have obtained three phone numbers. One of them is that of Kamaljeet Singh, which is switched off. The 2010 model Beetle car, bearing a Punjab registration number, has been found to be registered in the name of Kamaljeet Singh. In the RLA records, the address of the car owner has been mentioned as Zirakpur. We visited the house and met the brother of Kamaljeet Singh. His brother told us that Kamaljeet Singh and his family shifted to Sector 21 Panchkula a few years ago. We then visited the Sector 21 house and found no one there except for a household help.”

Police had registered a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder against an unknown person on Thursday night in the case.
SP (city) Mridul said, “Raids are being conducted to nab the car driver. So far, we have learned that the car was being driven at high speed when it ran over the people. A mechanical inspection of the car is pending.”