Lawrence Bishnoi interview: SIT gets more time to complete probe
The Punjab Police special investigation team (SIT) on Wednesday submitted a fresh status report on the probe into interview of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, telecasted by a private channel in March 2023.
The SIT led by Prabodh Kumar, IPS (retd) filed a sealed cover report and claimed that “significant progress” has been made in the investigation and sought more time for the completion of the investigation.
The high court bench of justice Anupinder Singh Grewal and justice Deepak Manchanda, after perusing the report, ordered resealing of the same and deferred the hearing for March 27. The content of the report was not discussed during the hearing.
The court was hearing a suo motu plea initiated in 2023 in connection with the interviews. Suo motu proceedings were initiated observing that such interviews tend to glorify crime and criminals and could have an adverse effect on impressionable minds. Later, the interviews were deleted but the police had told the court that these interviews garnered 12 million views on YouTube.
The controversy is about two interviews of the gangster telecast on March 14 and March 17, 2023, when he was in Bathinda jail. The Punjab Police had initially denied that these interviews took place within the state. Later, the SIT found that one of the interviews was conducted at the Punjab Police facility in Kharar on the intervening night of September 3 and 4, 2022, and the second interview was conducted in Rajasthan. The FIR in the second interview’s case has now been transferred to Rajasthan.
In the interviews, the gangster claimed that he was not involved in the broad daylight murder of prominent Punjabi singer Sidhu Moose Wala, who was killed in 2022. He had also hinted at taking revenge on actor Salman Khan for allegedly hunting blackbucks in Rajasthan in 1998.
AI-based CCTV surveillance installed in eight jails
Punjab deputy inspector general (prisons) Surinder Singh also filed a status report on the upgrade of infrastructure, which is being monitored by the court after this controversy.
The court was informed that the prison inmate calling system has been augmented, and the work with regard to AI-based CCTV surveillance in eight jails has been completed.
The installation of X-ray baggage scanners and body-worn cameras would be completed by March 31, while the AI-based CCTV surveillance in six jails and CCTV cameras in all high-security zones would be completed by May 2.
During the hearing, the court also sought a report by the next date of hearing on raising and setting up of iron nylon mesh on the boundary walls of vulnerable jails and areas where objects can be thrown inside the jail premises.
