PATIALA: A day after a Sikh undertrial died at Nabha jail, his family accused the jail authorities of torture and not providing adequate medical help.The family of twenty-three year old kabaddi player, Sukhpreet Singh claim he was implicated in a false unlawful activities case by the Mohali police in June 2017.

Sukhpreet Singh’s elder brother claimed that the jail authorities had made false claims that he had suffered seizures on Sunday. He alleged earlier, Sukhpreet Singh had told him and doctors how jail inmates used to inject some medicines into each other.

Kulwinder Kaur, the counsel for deceased, claimed Sukhpreet Singh was tortured both physically and mentally since he was brought in Nabha jail. She said he already had ligament issue in his right knee, but his pain deteriorated after he was interrogated in June 2017.

She said, “He was not given proper medical treatment inside the jail. The doctor at Nabha jail had referred him to the civil hospital and then to a higher institute. The jail officials took him to Government Rajindra hospital and got conducted his MRI in October this year. But since then, he was not given proper medical care. We were about to file a petition in the court to get treatment for Sukhpreet Singh, but he was tortured to death on Sunday.”

Sukhpreet Singh, an Amritdhari Sikh from Kalanaur village of Gurdaspur, was arrested in June 2017 by Mohali police in connection with a case registered against some persons in May 2017 under Sections 18, 19 and 20 of the IPC and Arms Act.

The police had then arrested five people for allegedly plotting some crime and claimed to have seized some illegal weapons from the custody of the accused. Sukhpreet Singh was among 11 persons arrested and were slapped with charges of unlawful activities and having links with the Babbar Khalsa outfit.

Jail superintendent Iqbal Singh Brar refuted the allegations of torture, saying they could not take Sukhpreet Singh to PGI Chandigarh due to lack of security personnel. He said, “It was only a knee ailment and not a major problem that can lead to death. The doctors who conducted the postmortem had revealed that Sukhpreet Singh’s heart was enlarged and there were blood clots in his lungs. It was blood that came out of his mouth.”He said a case under sections of CrPC was registered and further investigation is under progress.