Patiala:
A day after she was convicted and sentenced to jail in connection with the death of her daughter, senior Punjab minister Bibi Jagir Kaur, in blatant violation of rules, was taken to the Central Jail in Patiala in an air-conditioned private car. Rules strictly provide for convicts to be transported in jail vehicles.
That was not all. A policeman in the jail, in a gesture of respect, also bent down to touch her feet.
The incidents seem to trigger the question of whether rules are being bent for the 57-year-old minister for rural water supply and sanitation and defence services who was sentenced to five years of rigorous imprisonment by a court in Patiala on Friday. She is guilty of conspiracy in the mysterious death of her teenage daughter in April 2000. However, the court dropped murder charges against her.
She has resigned "on moral grounds" from the government that has just been re-elected to power.
19-year-old Harpeet Kaur was found dead on April 20, 2000 when Jagir Kaur was the president of the powerful Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) and was forced to resign following allegations that she was responsible for the death.
The case has been a complex one mainly because the investigation began only a few months after Harpreet's death. Matters were made difficult for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which was probing the death since no post-mortem was conducted. Harpreet was rushed to hospital from her mother's home by her domestic help and a doctor who later turned approver in the case. Doctors declared her dead on arrival, and no post-mortem was conducted.
Many witnesses have turned hostile since the trial began, including the man responsible for ensuring Harpreet's death was first investigated as a homicide.
On April 27, 2000, a man named Kamaljit Singh petitioned the Punjab High Court to commission an inquiry into Harpreet's death. He said Harpreet had married him secretly because her mother was opposed to their relationship. He produced photographs and a video of their wedding to buttress his allegations. He further said that Harpreet was pregnant with their child and that, Jagir Kaur had forced her to undergo an abortion.
The case was then handed over to the CBI. But Kamaljit also turned hostile after that. He said that the video of the wedding that he had submitted was a ceremony staged on camera to pressure Jagir Kaur; he claimed that he did not actually marry Harpreet.
Along with Jagir Kaur, six other people had been tried for her daughter's murder. One died during the course of the trial; two others have been acquitted.