GURDASPUR – District and Sessions judge SK Garg has sentenced all four accused in the murder of Jalandhar hotelier Gurkirat Singh Sekhon (alias Gikki) to rigorous life imprisonment under Sections 304 (1) (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 34 (common intention to hurt) of the IPC.
They were also sentenced under various provisions of the Arm’s Act and a fine of Rs 10,000 each was slapped on them. Minutes after the judgment, Gurkirat Sekhon’s father Rajbir Sekhon said he would file an appeal in the Punjab and Haryana High Court against the verdict.
At an impromptu press conference held outside the judge’s chamber, he said the accused should have been sentenced under Section 302 (murder). All accused—Ram Simran Singh Makkar (alias Prince Makkar), Sunny Sachdeva, Jasdeep Singh Jassu and Amarpreet Singh Narula — were present in the open court when the sentence was announced.
They entered the court as undertrials, but after 20 minutes they walked out as convicts. They have been lodged in the Gurdaspur Central Jail ever since the murder took place on the intervening night on April 20 and 21, 2011. An FIR was registered against all four at the Division No 6 police station, Jalandhar, under Sections 302 and 120(B) following a complaint by Rajbir Sekhon.
The case was transferred to the Gurdaspur Sessions Court in 2012. District Attorney JK Chopra led the battery of lawyers for the prosecution side.
