Inspector General of Police (Garhwal range) M A Ganapathy said the registration number of their motorcycle was flashed and a police team intercepted the trio on Dehradun’s Ring Road. Cornered, one of the youths fired at the police and “one of them” (Ranbir Singh) was killed in return fire, Ganapathy said.

“The other two managed to flee,” he said.

Dehradun’s Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Amit Sinha said, “Investigations have revealed that the motorbike recovered from the spot was a stolen vehicle. It belongs to one Ram Mehr of Ahir village in Panipat, Haryana.”

Murdered, says family
But Ranbir’s family rubbished the Uttarakhand police’s claims. His father Ravinder Singh said, “He was a simple boy; there is no criminal record against him. He had completed his MBA from Meerut and was placed by Kotak Mahindra — he had gone to Dehradun to join his new job.”

Singh said it was Ranbir’s first visit to Dehradun.

At the family home in Indirapuram, Ranbir’s aunt Anita Singh said he had called up his mother last evening to say he would be back home on Sunday after joining duty over the weekend. “The police are wrongly implicating him,” she said. “They did not even allow his father to see the body — police asked his father and other relatives to take the body only in front of Doon Hospital.”

Jasbir Singh, an uncle, said, “If he had attacked a sub-inspector, and was chased and gunned down as the police say, the police must bring the two friends they claim were with him. Ranbir had never been to Dehradun — he had no friends there.”

... contd.