A lower Court on Saturday framed charges of murder and kidnapping against the three persons allegedly involved in the kidnap and murder of five-year-old Khushpreet Singh. The trio against whom charges have been framed are Sukhdev Singh,his brother Gurvinder Singh and labourer Nand Kishore. The court framed charges under Sections 302 (murder),364-A (kidnapping for ransom) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). It was on December 21,2010,that Khushpreet was kidnapped from his house in Burail and later murdered by the trio. Khushpreets body was recovered at Mohali. The trio were arrested by Chandigarh Police on March 22. The family,which had informed the police within a couple of hours of the crime,had accused Chandigarh Police of adopting a casual attitude to the case,which had resulted in the escape of the kidnappers with the ransom amount of Rs 4 lakh from a police trap on December 23. On January 5 the boys body was recovered near a pit in Mohali. The accused Sukhdev Singh was employed as a daily wager with the local Water Works Department. He was under debt of lakhs of rupees. He then eyed his neighbour Khushpreets father,Lakhbir Singh,who runs a dairy shop in Burail and hatched a plan to kidnap one of his two minor sons for ransom. Sukhdev,who had huge liabilities and expenses,was under the impression that Lakhbir had recently won a huge amount of money from a committee of which he was a member. However,in reality,Lakhbir had never won any money.
