Four years after a young Jalandhar-based hotelier Gurkirat Singh Sekhon (Gikki) was shot in cold blood, Gurdaspur district court on Monday sentenced all four convicts, including an Akali leader, to life imprisonment.
Gurdaspur District and Sessions Judge SK Garg sentenced all accused, including Ram Simran Singh Makkar, alias Prince Makkar, — nephew of SAD former MlA Sarabjit Singh Makkar, to rigorous imprisonment for life under Section 304 (part 1) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) read with Section 34.
The four were also sentenced under various provisions of the Arms Act. The court also slapped Rs10,000 fine on each.
Section 304 of the IPC corresponds to culpable homicide not amounting to murder while Section 34 stands for common intention to hurt.
All accused — Prince Makkar, Sunny Sachdeva, Jasdeep Singh Jassu and Amarpreet Singh Narula — have been lodged in Gurdaspur Central Jail ever since the murder took place in April 2011.
The order came days after the Punjab & Haryana High Court had directed the Gurdaspur court to “decide the matter at the earliest”.
The High Court, in one of its previous orders, had directed day-to-day proceedings in the matter while making it clear that the defence would not “seek any further time or adjournment”.
However, the hearing was adjourned on July 29 after the prime accused Prince Makkar and other accused pleaded innocence when the judgment was expected to be delivered.
Earlier, the High Court had, on a petition filed by Prince Makkar, transferred the trial from Jalandhar to Gurdaspur on September 20, 2011.
An FIR was registered against all four under Sections 302 and 120 (B) of the IPC on Rajbir Sekhon’s complaint to the police. The case was transferred to the Gurdaspur sessions court in 2012.
On the intervening night of April 20 and 21, Prince Makkar and three of his accomplices had allegedly killed 32-year-old Gikki in the posh Model Town area of Jalandhar city. The Sekhons own Hotel Sekhon Grand in Jalandhar.
At the time of the incident, Makkar was a Municipal Councillor. Gikki and Prince Makkar were childhood friends and had studied together in St Joseph’s Convent School and then in Apeejay School. later, they fell apart over some dispute.
Visibly unhappy over the judgement, Gikki’s father, Rajbir Sekhon, maintained that he would approach the Punjab and Haryana High Court against the verdict.
Sekhon, minutes after the judgement was pronounced, claimed that the accused should have been sentenced under Section 302 (murder) of the IPC.