Trial run

LAST year began in Punjab with a daring jail break that evoked strong reactions and little action. Three prime accused in the assassination ...

LAST year began in Punjab with a daring jail break that evoked strong reactions and little action. Three prime accused in the assassination of Punjab chief minister Beant Singh escaped from the high security Model Jail in Burail on the night of January 21, 2004.

Beant Singh was assassinated outside the Civil Secretariat in Chandigarh on August 31, 1995. In the following few months, eight people were arrested.

Among them was an engineer with BPL, Gurmeet Singh, and two Punjab Police constables Lakhwinder Singh and Balwant Singh. Another accused Paramjit Singh was arrested in 1997.

TWIN trials are on in the case. The first is CBI vs Gurmeet Singh and others and the second, CBI vs Paramjit Singh. But three of the accused, Jagtar Singh Hawara, Jagtar Singh Tara and Paramjit Singh Bhaura, escaped from the Burail jail, digging a 100 ft long tunnel. They are untraced.

About 11 people were arrested including the jail superintendent and other officials, allegedly for facilitating the escape.

OF the 330 witnesses listed by the CBI, only 245 have been examined. Of these, 7 are yet to be cross-examined. About 11 witnesses have turned hostile during the trial. Another prime witness, Balwinder Singh, a mechanic who gave one of the most vital clues in the case, has also complained of harassment.

After the jail break, the Beant Singh trial was stalled for a while but resumed a few months ago. This time round the pace has quickened. 8216;8216;If the trial continues at the present pace, it might come to its logical end by the end of next year,8217;8217; says Arunjeev Singh Walia, one of the defence counsels.

The case revolves around the CBI8217;s contention that Punjab police constable Dilawar Singh was the human bomb who assassinated Beant Singh.

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	CASE FILE
	Prisoners of time 8226; Twin trials are going on in the case, which lawyers say, is one of the reasons for delay 8226; The trial halted briefly after three of the accused escaped from prison. It resumed a few months ago 8226; Of the 330 witnesses listed by the CBI, 245 have been examined. Eleven have turned hostile

8216;8216;It was a horrifying scene. There were only dismembered bodies. More than twenty people died in that attack including the CM. Through the day we kept on collecting pieces of bodies,8217;8217; remembers one of the investigating officers.

The defence, however, argues that the human bomb angle is a mere figment of the imagination and the accused are innocent.

Meanwhile, the trial has already changed three judges in its course. It remains to be seen if the fourth will be the last.