Bathinda, April 21 -- The court of Bathinda additional sessions judge Mahesh Grover on Monday stated that the five Punjab Police personnel, accused in the 2024 "custodial death" case, would be tried under Sections 103 (murder), 238 (destroying evidence and providing false information to protect offenders), 340 (forging electronic evidence) and 190 (unlawful assembly in prosecution of the common object) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. The case pertains to Bhinder Singh, a resident of Lakhi Jungle village in Bathinda, who, according to police, died after jumping into a lake in Bathinda while avoiding capture by a CIA team in connection with a case related to possession of illegal weapon in October 2024. A judicial probe, which was initiated after the family alleged that he died in police custody, has concluded that the deceased was subjected to waterboarding, a notorious technique in which water is poured into the nostrils and the mouth of a victim to evoke the sensation of asphyxiation by drowning. Though the police denied keeping him in custody, the judicial report relied upon circumstantial evidence to nail the cops. A fact-finding investigation by a judicial officer relied upon the digital and forensic evidence, documents and a statement of a doctor to refute the police theory that Bhinder died from drowning in a lake of the defunct Guru Nanak Dev Thermal Power Plant in the city area. The report also stated that the CIA team kept Bhinder in illegal custody and then they tried to fabricate the alleged murder as an accidental drowning. Earlier in the day, the accused - then CIA-1 in-charge (inspector) Navpreet Singh, head constable Rajwinder Singh and constables Gaganpreet Singh, Harjit Singh and Jaswinder Singh - who were posted with the crime investigation agency (CIA)-1 unit in Bathinda at the time of the incident in October 2024, appeared in the court of the district and sessions judge who referred the trial to the court of the additional sessions judge. The trial court has fixed the hearing for May 11....