A Mohali court on Saturday issued an arrest warrant against former Punjab DGP Sumedh Singh Saini in connection with the 1991 Balwant Singh Multani disappearance case.
It has directed police to arrest Mr. Saini and produce him before the court by September 25, according to an order.
The police on Saturday moved the court for the issuance of an arrest warrant against Mr. Saini, the former Punjab director general of police.
Special Public Prosecutor Sartej Singh Narula said the Punjab Police team was facing obstacles in getting assistance from the police of other states in the absence of a warrant to arrest Saini.
Mr. Saini continues to remain elusive despite the special investigation team of the Punjab Police conducting raids at several places.
The SIT has already carried out raids at many places in Punjab, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi but failed to arrest the former state police chief.
Saini, whose whereabouts were still unknown, was booked in May in connection with the disappearance of Multani in 1991 when he was working as a junior engineer with Chandigarh Industrial and Tourism Corporation.
Mr. Saini moved the Supreme Court, seeking anticipatory bail in this matter after the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday had dismissed his bail plea.
The high court had also dismissed Mr. Saini’s second petition that sought quashing of an FIR in the case or the transfer of investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
A Mohali court had dismissed his bail plea on September 1.
The police had last month added murder charge under Section 302 of the IPC in the FIR in the Multani disappearance case after two former Chandigarh Police personnel -- ex-UT police Inspector Jagir Singh and former ASI Kuldeep Singh who are also co-accused -- turned approver in the disappearance case.
The Punjab Police on September 3 had claimed that Saini “absconded” while leaving behind the Z plus security allotted to him.
He had left his Chandigarh residence without Punjab Police security personnel and security vehicles, including a jammer vehicle.
Mr. Saini, a 1982-batch IPS officer, was the youngest DGP in the country.
He was removed from the DGP post in 2015 after protests erupted following sacrilege incidents. He retired in 2018.
Balwant Multani, who was a resident of Mohali, was picked up by police after the terrorist attack on Mr. Saini, who was then the senior superintendent of police in Chandigarh, in 1991.
However, the police had later claimed that Balwant Multani, son of a former IAS officer, had escaped from custody of Qadian Police in Gurdaspur.
Mr. Saini and six others were booked on the complaint of Balwant Multani’s brother, Palwinder Singh Multani, who is a resident of Jalandhar.
The case was registered against them under sections 364 (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence), 344 (wrongful confinement), 330 (voluntarily causes hurt) and 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code at Mataur police station in Mohali.
