Lahore: Bhagat Singh’s name was not mentioned in the FIR for the murder of a British police officer here in 1928, the Lahore police have found, in a major boost to prove the legendary freedom fighter’s innocence in the case 83 years after his execution.
Petitioner Imtiaz Rashid Qureshi, chairman of the Bhagat Singh Memorial Foundation, had filed a petition seeking an attested copy of the FIR registered against Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru for allegedly killing then SSP John P. Saunders.
Bhagat Singh was awarded the death sentence for killing Saunders and he was subsequently hanged at Shadman Chowk in Lahore in 1931, aged just 23. Over eight decades after his hanging, the Lahore police searched through the record of the Anarkali police station on the court’s order and managed to find the FIR of the murder of Saunders.
Written in Urdu, the FIR was registered with the Anarkali police station on December 17, 1928 at 4.30 pm against two “unknown gunmen”. A police official of Anarkali police was the complainant of the case.
The complainant-cum-eyewitness said the man he followed was “five feet 5 inch, had Hindu face, small moustache, having strong body, wearing white trouser and grey kurta and also wearing black christilike hat”.
