BATHINDA, March 18 -- Nearly a year after a judicial probe indicted five Punjab Police personnel for the alleged custodial death of a man in Bathinda, a local court has committed the case to a sessions court, where the accused will now face trial for murder and other charges. Judicial magistrate first class Rasveen Kaur on Tuesday sent the case for trial, observing that there was sufficient material to proceed against the accused. The matter is scheduled to come up for hearing on April 20. A detailed copy of the order is awaited. The accused - then CIA-1 in-charge inspector Navpreet Singh, head constable Rajwinder Singh and constables Gaganpreet Singh, Harjit Singh and Jaswinder Singh - were posted with the crime investigation agency (CIA)-1 unit in Bathinda at the time of the incident in October 2024. The case pertains to the death of Bhinder Singh, a resident of Lakhi Jungle village, who allegedly died in police custody. Findings of the judicial probe, reported first by HT in February last year, had stated that Bhinder was subjected waterboarding, a notorious technique in which water is poured into the nostrils and the mouth of a victim, to evoke the sensation of asphyxiation by drowning. It had been concluded that Bhinder was kept by the CIA team in custody illegally and then they tried to fabricate the alleged murder into an accidental drowning. The judicial findings relied upon the digital and forensic evidence, documents and a statement of a doctor to rubbish the police theory that Bhinder died due to drowning in a lake of the defunct Guru Nanak Dev Thermal Power Plant in the city area. A fact-finding by a judicial officer was instituted after the deceased's brother Satnam Singh, who was lodged in the Ferozepur central prison, on October 19, 2024, wrote to sessions judge, Ferozepur, alleging that his brother was "illegally detained, interrogated, and tortured to death by the police" after which the complaint was forwarded to Bathinda district and sessions judge for an inquiry. On October 17, 2014, then CIA chief Navpreet deposited the body of Bhinder at the Shaheed Bhai Mani Singh Civil Hospital. As per the daily diary report (DDR) recorded at the thermal police station, the CIA team was looking for Bhinder's brothers Satnam Singh and Baljinder Singh, who were accused of a crime reported in 2021. Police records state that the CIA personnel learnt about the possible movement of one person identified as Billa and Bhinder, who was wanted in cases registered at Nehianwala police station near the thermal plant lake. "Inspector Navpreet, along with the police party reached near thermal plant lakes where they spotted Billa and Bhinder. Seeing the police party, Bhinder jumped into the lake while the other accused fled from the spot on his motorcycle. The inspector with the help of the police party tried to rescue him (Bhinder) and took him out of the water. He (Bhinder) was taken to a civil hospital, where he was declared dead. The body was deposited in the mortuary of the civil hospital, Bathinda," the record further reads. As the family learnt about Bhinder's death, relatives held a protest on October 18, 2024, and alleged that it was a custodial death. The same day, advocate Surya Kant Singla sent emails to the Punjab and Haryana high court and Bathinda senior superintendent of police for conducting an autopsy by a board of doctors. In his report, the judicial officer found a police DDR report on October 19 "interesting as deceased's father Darshan Singh made a (police) statement that his son Bhinder jumped into the thermal lake and died naturally". It was alleged that Bhinder was picked up by the CIA-1 team for a case of allegedly possessing an illegal weapon on October 17. Though the police denied keeping him in custody, the judicial report relied upon circumstantial evidence to nail the cops. The report found that the call detail records (CDR) of the mobile phone of the deceased and inspector Navpreet were active at Buladewala village at around the same time on the evening of October 17. The probe also highlighted a delay in an autopsy by concluding that "it appears that a delay of two days in conducting the post-mortem was due to the allegations and police trying to make the family members furnish a statement favourable to CIA-1."...