Chandigarh, March 6 -- The Punjab and Haryana high court on Thursday directed the Punjab director general of police (DGP) to submit an affidavit detailing circumstances around the death of a 19-year-old youth in an encounter in Gurdaspur on February 25.

"We can't shut our eyes (to the questions being raised around the encounters)," observed the bench of justice Anupinder Singh Grewal and justice Deepak Manchanda, as amicus curiae in the case, Tanu Bedi, read out reports around encounter killings in Punjab and submitting that there appeared to be a pattern to these incidents.

The bench had taken suo motu note of the incident on Thursday morning and summoned the DGP, Gaurav Yadav, in the afternoon hearing through the video-conferencing. ...