29 August 2004 :

Five people, including a Noida police sub-inspector, were sentenced to death by a court in Faridabad, India, for their involvement in a case in which four people were murdered in December 1999. Ten others were sentenced to life imprisonment. The cop, Sheonath Singh, had allowed Brahamjit, a gangster, to escape from the police lock-up on December 20 1999. Brahamjit, along with his accomplices, then murdered four people in Faridabad - Harpal Singh, Samay Pal, Dinesh and Raju - with whom they had a long-standing dispute. Brahamjit, acting in collusion with Singh, then returned to the lock-up. During the hearing of the case, Brahamjit had pleaded innocence on the ground that he was in the lock-up at the time of the incident. Additional district judge R.S. Virk sentenced Bharamjit, Singh and three others - Jai Prakash, Pramod and Vijay - to death. Virk justified the punishment saying that Brahamjit and his men were dreaded gangsters, who deserved no leniency.