Navreet Singh death: Eyewitnesses, family accuse police; expert says wounds consistent with bullet injury; police deny

Two eyewitnesses and family members have alleged that Navreet Singh, a 25-year-old farmer from Uttar Pradesh, died after he was shot during the farmers’ rally in Delhi on 26 January. The eyewitnesses told The Caravan that they saw police officials fire at Navreet, and that his tractor overturned seconds later. According to the post-mortem report, Navreet died as “a result of antemortem head injury.” Hardip Singh Dibdiba, Navreet’s grandfather, who examined his grandson’s body, alleged that the post-mortem report is inaccurate—despite recording wounds consistent with a gunshot, it did not mention bullet injuries as the likely cause of death, he said.

The Delhi Police has denied the allegations of the eyewitnesses and the family. Jasmeet Singh, the deputy commissioner of police for Delhi’s central district, told The Caravan that “no bullet was fired.” Referring to the post-mortem report, the DCP said that it “clearly states the cause of death.” Despite repeated requests, he refused to answer queries pertaining to the details of the incident.

The postmortem report, prepared by a panel of three doctors at District Hospital in Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur, concludes that the cause of the death was “shock and hemorrhage as a result of antemortem head injury.” A forensic expert with 13 years of experience with postmortems, who is also a senior resident at one of the leading government medical institutions in the country, examined the postmortem report. According to the expert, the only possible explanation for the injuries recorded by the doctors is that Navreet was hit by two bullets.

The first two antemortem injuries recorded in the report include a lacerated wound of “size 2x1cm, bone deep, over medial end of [right] eyebrow” and another lacerated wound of “2x1cm over left side of chin, below the left angle of mouth.” For the first wound, the “margins are inverted” and for the second, the “margins are inverted and bone deep,” the report states.

Referring to the first injury recorded in the report, the expert said that “margins are inverted when the force is from outside to inside,” so it “could also be the firearm entry wound.” According the expert, the second injury could also be a bullet wound. “The thing that corresponds is that both the injuries are of the same size, 2x1cm, both have inverted margins, both are bone deep,” the forensic expert explained. “So, this could probably be by the same weapon, or firearm … distant firearm.”

We asked the forensic expert for other conceivable explanations for these injuries. “See, if somebody is hit on the floor or road, or tractor, or trolley, or tire, or anything, it will not be the same,” the expert responded. “It will not have that beautifully explained inverted margins, it would have been a wide wound. They have not recorded grazed abrasions anywhere, which would suggest a sliding fall on the road.”

The fourth injury recorded in the report is another lacerated wound “of size 6x3cm over [right] ear” whose “margins are irregular and everted.” The report records “ear ossicles and brain matter coming out” of this wound. “Everted means force is from in to out,” the forensic expert said. “The ear ossicles are two to three centimeters below the external circle of the head, towards the brain. It is impossible to drag them out, unless the force is coming from inside to outside. So that could be a projectile thing—it could be a firearm, it could be a bullet.”

The only other thing that can explain the injuries, the expert said, is an iron rod. “But even a rod will not be able to penetrate so deep. Even if it could enter, it could not get out and would remain lodged in the body,” the forensic expert said. “Only a projectile can make everted margins.” When asked which other projectile, besides a bullet, could make a wound like the ones recorded in Navreet’s post-mortem report, the forensic expert replied, “I don’t think anything other than a bullet can make that wound.”

The forensic expert’s analysis, given to us on the afternoon of 31 January, matched almost verbatim with the opinion of Dr Basil Purdue, a forensic pathologist registered with the British government, who was quoted in a report published the next day in The Guardian. After examining the post-mortem, Purdue told The Guardian, “To me this is one gunshot wound, possibly two, unless proved otherwise.” Purdue’s opinion was that it was “extremely implausible” for Navreet’s death to have resulted from a tractor overturning, the paper said. “You cannot get these injuries from a fall.”

The expert medical views are consistent with the family’s allegations. Dibdiba, Navreet’s grandfather, told us in an interview on 29 January that a bullet entered Navreet’s face from around the jaw, pierced through the skull and shot out of the back of his right ear. Dibdiba also said that the doctors who conducted the postmortem admitted to him that the injuries were caused by a bullet but did not record this as the cause of death in the postmortem report.

Inderjit Singh, Navreet’s uncle, told us that he saw an X-ray of Navreet’s skull that showed the path of a bullet travelling through his head. The family members said that the chief medical officer of Rampur, Subodh Sharma, refused to provide a copy of the X-ray to them. Dibdiba said that he would approach the court to secure a copy of the X-ray, as well as the video recording of the postmortem procedure. We reached out to the CMO, the deputy CMO Manoj Shukla—who was the signing authority on the postmortem report—and one of the doctors on the panel. They all refused to comment. “We are only liable to speak in a court of law,” the CMO told us in his office.

The eyewitnesses, Harmanjit Singh and Balwinder Singh, are both farmers from Uttar Pradesh who said they had come to central Delhi’s ITO area with Navreet from the ongoing sit-in protest at the Ghazipur border. Since late November, lakhs of farmers have been sitting in protest at Delhi’s borders, against controversial farm laws enacted by the Narendra Modi government in 2020. Farmer groups had scheduled a tractor rally around the capital on Republic Day, to mark their agitation. Harmanjit and Balwinder said that Navreet was driving his tractor down Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg in the capital, when the police shot at him, killing him instantly, and causing his tractor to overturn. Pointing to the grills along the boundary wall of the building next to the spot where Navreet died, Balwinder said, “Some policemen came from that side—three or four of them were there—they fired.” Harmanjit, too, accused the police of killing Navreet.

Within a few hours of Navreet’s death, numerous journalists and media organisations published a short clip, purportedly of CCTV footage from Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg. The clip is a screen recording of a device that is playing what appears to be CCTV footage. Recorded at a distance from the scene of incident, the clip shows a tractor crashing into police barricades and overturning. The clip speeds through a few seconds at the beginning of the CCTV video, before the tractor overturns.

Various journalists and news reports concluded on the basis of this video that Navreet died as a result of a tractor accident. But the video does not conclusively determine that no bullets were fired—in fact, the sped-up footage in the video clearly shows that it was edited before being broadcast.

Several news organisations stated that the Delhi Police has ruled the death an accident, and attributed the CCTV footage to the Delhi Police. Yet, the police itself has not confirmed releasing the video, or even confirmed the authenticity of the CCTV footage. One journalist who received the video told us that it was sent to him by the commissioner’s office, but he was asked not to attribute it as such. “They said that I could only attribute it to the Delhi Police in general.” Our queries to the police regarding the video went unanswered.

*

Farmers protesting the agri-laws at Delhi’s borders had scheduled a tractor rally for Republic Day. The Delhi Police had sought to restrict the rally to the outskirts of the capital, and obtained the cooperation of many farmer union leaders to the prescribed route. But the farmer cadres were keen on conducting the rally on Delhi’s Outer Ring Road. At least one major union at the protests, the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee, had declared on 25 January that it would not follow the designated route.

On 26 January, thousands of protesting farmers marched and drove their tractors into central Delhi, with hundreds on foot even reaching the Red Fort. The farmers’ rally witnessed several incidents of lathi charges and tear-gas shelling from the police, as well as attacks on police barricades and personnel by the farmers. Protesting farmers reached the ITO area in central Delhi at around noon, where similar confrontations ensued. By around 2.30 pm, when we reached ITO, Navreet had died and his body lay in the middle of a four-way crossing, draped with the national flag. Over a dozen farmers sat in a circle around him.

Harmanjit Singh was among those seated next to Navreet’s body. He had come to the Ghazibur border protest from Meerut. Like most others, when asked about the death, he began describing the events from their confrontation with the police at ITO. “They threw tear-gas shells at us … they threw stones at those driving the tractors,” Harmanjit said. He told us that Navreet was driving the tractor when he was shot. “They shot at him from the side, from the grills … After he was shot, the tractor toppled, and he died on the spot.” Harmanjit added, “Then they tried to seize the body. They beat us with sticks and stones, but we did not let them take the body. If they managed to take the body, they would have finished all the proof. They would have presented it as an accident—or anything, what does it matter to them?”

His account of the incident was corroborated by another eyewitness, Balwinder Singh—an old man from Shamli, in Uttar Pradesh, who had also come from the Ghazipur protest and whom we met at the spot where Navreet died. Balwinder pointed to a part of the boundary wall of the Andhra Education Society, that had a grill. Balwinder said that police officials were stationed there. “After firing shots, the tractor couldn’t be controlled and it toppled over. When it toppled, they shot again,” Balwinder said.

 “After the shot, I shouted, ‘Our brother has been killed, our brother has been killed, people run.’ Then people ran,” he continued. “Then they lobbed teargas shells. Then from there, about six, seven, eight policemen, they began taking his body and going.” Upon seeing this, Balwinder said that a group of farmers rushed towards the policemen “without caring for our own lives,” in order to stop them. “We have to die anyway,” he remarked. “I didn’t leave his pant, and two others didn’t leave his shirt.” Ultimately, he said, more farmers came to aid them, forcing the police to flee. The farmers brought Navreet’s body to the ITO crossing, around two hundred metres from the Andhra Education Society building. They sat in a circle around the body, as if guarding it.

Multiple people at the scene told us that the police officials had fled from the rear gate of the Andhra Education Society. A policeman who was still standing near the gate confirmed this. Seeming nervous, he told the farmers that the rest of his colleagues “ran away out of fear.” He then told the farmers that he is on their side and will stand with them. (The Caravan is withholding the police officer’s name.)

In the hours following the incident, the Delhi Police was conspicuous in its absence from the site. Eyewitnesses placed the time of the police firing at around 1.30 pm on 26 January, and The Caravan’s journalists were at the site from 2.30 pm, for over three hours. In that time, the spot of Navreet’s death remained unsecured. When we reached the site, Navreet’s tractor was still on the road. There was a small pool of viscous blood on the road and other splatters of blood nearby. A blood-stained blanket with holes, and several items that fell out of the truck, all lay strewn on the ground when we left.

Many of the farmers gathered in the AES premises—the crowd swelled to about two dozen over the afternoon—told us they had decided to remain in the area to ensure that nothing untoward happened to the evidence. But the police appeared uninterested in the accident site. In the three hours that we were there, we asked about a dozen Delhi Police officers to secure the scene as they walked by on Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg. Some said they were “posted elsewhere.” One uniformed officer advised us to call 100. When we asked him to do so instead, he smiled and said, “I don’t want my number to make that call.”

A grand arch, with four large pillars, frames the entrance to the AES building. Two CCTV cameras are mounted on the boundary next to the arch, which has a grill—making the cameras ideally positioned to capture Navreet’s death at close quarters. The protesters at the AES said that they wanted to see the CCTV footage and ensure that it was not destroyed. At around 4 pm, they persuaded the guard on duty at the building to take them downstairs to a basement room where the CCTV recordings are stored. Around the same time, inspector from the IP Estate police station showed up, and apologised to the farmers for the delay to the farmers. We accompanied the farmers and the police official to the basement.

For half an hour or so, the farmers unsuccessfully attempted to see the CCTV footage in front of the police officer. A technician was called, but he could not figure out how to play the footage either. Then, a force of around twenty officials—all dressed in riot gear—entered the AES from the rear entrance. They were led by HSP Singh, the additional commissioner of police for the Tilak Nagar division. The ACP waited outside the building, while the other police officials went down to the basement room.

From the outset, this police posse was aggressive in its approach and demeanor. They marched down to the basement and shoved the farmers out of the room, grabbing one of them by the collar and shaking him. One of the policemen removed the hard disk containing the CCTV footage, placed it within his chest shield, and walked out. Everyone else followed him.

The police officials refused to speak to us, declining even to identify themselves or which police station they were from. We asked them why it had taken them over three hours after the incident to come to the spot. They responded with unconvincing answers, stating that they were having lunch and had served long duty hours. They evaded explaining why the scene of the alleged crime had not been secured, or why the police officials had not come earlier to record the statements of eyewitnesses to the incident. Eventually, one of the officers said that they were from the IP Estate police station, but did not provide any other details. Before leaving from the rear gate, HSP Singh turned around and said, “If you want to know what really happened, speak to the Times Now journalist”—referring to the news channel. (It was unclear whom Singh was referring to.) Singh also warned us to not point the camera at him.

The CCTV cameras outside the Andhra Education Society directly overlooked the spot of Navreet’s death. These would have recorded the incident from much closer proximity than the clip subsequently circulated by the media. The disk containing this CCTV footage has been in the possession of Delhi Police since the evening of 26 January, but we were unable to find any trace of it in the public domain. The police did not answer our queries about the fate of the footage.

*

According to Dibdiba, the grandfather, Navreet’s body was eventually taken back from ITO to Ghazipur border. Dibdiba, too, was protesting the farm laws since late November. On 26 January, he was at the Rajasthan border, where a sit-in had begun a few weeks earlier. He received a call that afternoon from his nephew, informing him of Navreet’s death. Upon receiving the news, he came to the Ghazipur border, where his grandson’s body had arrived.

Dibdiba told us that at Ghazipur, he was asked what he wanted to do with the body. “I said, ‘the body now belongs to the farmers’ movement’”—the leaders on whose call Navreet had come to Delhi should decide, Dibdiba said. To his disappointment, no leader came forth to take responsibility for his grandson’s body. So, he gave in to the pleadings from his family members and took the body back home to a village on the northern border of Uttar Pradesh, called Dibdiba, from where he takes his name.

In this village in the Rampur district, crops—wheat, mustard, sugarcane, rice—are grown in huge farms lined with poplar trees. We met him here, on 29 January, in the spacious, single-story house that Navreet had grown up in. Dibdiba said that he was proud of his grandson’s “shahadat”—martyrdom—in this cause. He said that one cannot expect a movement to be fueled by the blood of other people’s sons. “See, when we are calling for all the youth in the country to join the movement, we can’t keep our children behind. This is not morally correct,” he said. “We have to treat others’ children the way we treat our children.” He said he saw Navreet’s body. Pointing to the area around his chin, his eyes welling up, he said, “There was a hole here.”

Before reaching home with Navreet’s body, Dibdiba stopped in Rampur to have the postmortem conducted. He told us that he wanted the post-mortem to be done in Delhi itself, as Uttar Pradesh “has a BJP government, we knew everything would be manipulated.” He said, “The doctors told us they agree with us, that ‘this death could have only happened with a bullet, but we cannot write it’ … But they would have already gotten calls before we reached Rampur.” Dibdiba said his family members told him that they had already spoken to members of the Rampur administration from Ghazipur, who said they would make arrangements for a post-mortem.

Aunjaneya Kumar Singh, the district magistrate of Rampur, told us in his office that he was alerted of the death by “local intelligence units”—which he said is the usual procedure—and started to prepare for the postmortem immediately. Kumar Singh also claimed that Dibdiba and Inderjit Singh, who were accompanying the body were “completely denying a postmortem, they were resisting” and that he had to convince them of its value.

Dibdiba and Inderjit denied this. “We did not even once say that we do not want a postmortem,” Inderjit told us. “We wanted it to happen in Delhi, but since that did not happen, it had to be done in Rampur.” We asked Kumar Singh about the family’s allegations about the missing details in the postmortem, but he said that he is not qualified to comment on that. When we asked if we could speak with the doctors or the CMO, he said that would be against the procedure.

Kumar Singh also told us that even before the postmortem was conducted, Dibdiba told the local media that the “RSS people in disguise of police” shot and killed Navreet. To back this up, he sent us a video clip. We did not find this claim in the video. Speaking to the media, Dibdiba can be heard saying that the police shot and killed his grandson and that the responsibility of the “murder” lies with the government. When the journalists asked him again who shot his grandson, Dibdiba responded, “We can only call them the police … We don’t know if they were the police, or if they were RSS men in police uniform, or the BJP—it is for the government to tell us who they were.” He added, “If it was an accident, why was the body lying for three hours on the road? Why did the police not take him to the hospital? Why was no first aid given to our grandson?”

*

The Delhi Police did not issue any formal statement about Navreet’s death on the day it took place. Yet, that evening, without the police having formally stated its position on Navreet’s death and several hours before the post-mortem was conducted, mainstream media outlets ruled Navreet’s death an accident. They attributed this conclusion to the Delhi Police, claiming the police said he died because his tractor overturned. The media arrived at this conclusion on the basis of the short clip of CCTV footage, that showed the front-side view of the tractor crashing into the barricade and overturning. But there is little clarity on the authenticity of the video—the Delhi Police has not formally released the clip, or even acknowledged it.

In fact, the CCTV clip does not conclusively disprove the allegations of the eyewitnesses and the family. The spot where Balwinder accused the police of firing from is not clearly visible in the video. Further, the overturning of the tractor does not rule out the version of events narrated by the eyewitnesses. The video, which shows only the front of the tractor, is sped up in one part and is shot from a distance, does not conclusively show the reason for the topple.

The media outlets who released this clip do not appear to have considered the possibility that the tractor turned after Navreet was shot. Starting that evening, numerous journalists concluded that the farmers’ allegations were false. Raj Shekhar Jha, a journalist with the Times of India, was among the first to tweet the video of a device playing the CCTV clip. At 6:11 pm, he posted the clip to Twitter with the caption, “This is how the man tried to break the barricade at a high speed and crashed his Tractor. Died at the spot.”

One minute later, the senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai tweeted, “While the farm protestors claim that the deceased Navneet Singh was shot at by Delhi police while on a tractor, this video clearly shows that the tractor overturned while trying to break the police barricades. The farm protestors allegations don’t stand. Post mortem awaited.”

At 7:08 pm, the news agency Asian News International tweeted, “#WATCH | A protesting farmer died after a tractor rammed into barricades and overturned at ITO today: Delhi Police.” Not only did ANI attribute this conclusion to the Delhi Police, its tweet credited the police with the video: “CCTV Visuals: Delhi Police.” At 7.34 pm, NDTV published a report titled, “On Camera, Accident That Left A Farmer Dead During Protests.”

It is unclear how any of these journalists ruled out the farmers’ allegation that Navreet had been shot. Sardesai and NDTV even acknowledged the allegation, but still concluded that the death was caused by accident without explaining this logical jump. At 2:51 pm, Sardesai had tweeted, “One person, 45 year old Navneet killed allegedly in police firing at ITO. Farmers tell me: the ‘sacrifice’ will not go in vain.. #groundzero.” He later deleted this tweet and posted the CCTV clip. He added to the tweet on the clip by posting, “The police have shown great restraint despite grave provocation by the farm protestors in ITO/Red Fort area: they fired tear gas, no evidence of bullets fired although farm protestors claimed otherwise. Amidst claims and counter claims, the police action needs to be commended.”

We approached all of these organisations to inquire about how they received the CCTV clip, how they verified it, and what led them to dismiss the eyewitness allegations on the sole basis of this clip, even before a post-mortem. An NDTV journalist involved in the report justified its headline by claiming that by evening, it had “become absolutely clear” how Navreet had died, because the Delhi Police had “unofficially” informed them that he died because of the accident. Given that their report also mentioned the allegation of police firing and noted that the postmortem had not been conducted, we asked how they had ascertained the cause of death surely enough to declare it as a fact in the headline. The journalist responded, “We all know what is a headline and what is a story, right? Please ask your bosses to explain that. If you understand that then you wouldn’t be asking this stupid question.” The journalist then hung up the phone.

Sunil Prabhu and Chandrashekar Srinivasan, the reporter and editor, respectively, of NDTV’s story, did not respond to official questions sent to them. Sardesai, Shekhar Jha and Smita Prakash—the editor of ANI—did not respond to official queries about their tweets either.

Since the death, several other media outlets have reported the family’s allegations about the cause of Navreet’s death and the contents of the post-mortem. On 29 January, the Times of India’s Bareilly bureau published a story headlined, “UP farmer’s autopsy finds ‘brain matter’ spilled out of ‘everted’ wound.” The news article quoted the details of the autopsy report, as well as the family’s allegations regarding it. It quoted Inderjit, Navreet’s uncle, saying that “We were told by one of the doctors that the bullet injury is visible. After being assured, we cremated the dead body peacefully. We never thought we’d be cheated.”

On 30 January, The Wire, too, reported that the family disputed the claims of the post-mortem. Vikramreet Singh, Navreet’s father, told The Wire, “Everybody who saw his dead body saw that it was a bullet injury. One of the doctors who did the post-mortem said that it is a bullet injury, but that he can’t write it.” The Wire’s report also quoted a senior doctor at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, who noted that laceration wounds could be caused by bullet injuries. The senior doctor added, “It seems that the post mortem report has carefully been made to remove any doubts about a bullet injury.”

On 27 January, the day after Navreet died, Ashok Gehlot, the Rajasthan chief minister and veteran Congress leader, wrote to Dibdiba expressing his condolences. “I am deeply saddened to learn that your [grandson] Shri Navreet Singh ji died after being shot during the farmers rally in Delhi on 26 January, 2021,” Gehlot wrote. “This martyrdom will always be remembered.”

On 1 February, Sukhpal Singh Khaira, the former Aam Aadmi Party leader who resigned to form the Punjabi Ekta Party, wrote to the Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, asking for a judicial probe into Navreet’s death. Referring to the post-mortem report, Khaira wrote that it “hints towards his death by a bullet.” Khaira told us, “I believe it’s a murder and it needs a judicial probe. It can be ordered by the Delhi government.” He added, “There is every possibility that he may have been shot first and then his tractor banged into the barricades and overturned. … If we hold an inquiry, we’ll come to know if it was a death by accident or a death by firing.”

At 4.09 pm on 26 January, The Caravan had posted a series of tweets about Harmanjit’s eyewitness account of Navneet’s death. Through the evening, as we brought in more updates—on the CCTV footage, on reaching out to the police for their version—The Caravan continued to update the developing story on its Twitter account. Since then, ten first-information reports have been registered against The Caravan’s editors and owners, as well as other journalists. Six FIRs have been registered by different police stations in Madhya Pradesh, and four others in Noida, Bhopal, Gurgaon, Bengaluru and Delhi. The FIRs accuse seven named persons—the Congress leader Shashi Tharoor; the journalists Mrinal Pande, Zafar Agha and Sardesai; and Paresh Nath, Anant Nath, and Vinod Jose, who are the publisher and editor-in-chief, editor and executive editor, respectively, of The Caravan. Though the complainants differ in each case, the FIR is registered against almost identical complaints, that claim that The Caravan and other individuals attempted to incite violence via tweets or coverage on Navreet’s death. The complaints accuse the individuals of a wide range of offences, including sedition, promoting enmity, outraging religious feelings and criminal intimidation.

We sent detailed questions to SN Shrivastava, the commissioner of police and Eish Singhal, the Delhi Police public-relations officer. Singhal directed us to Jasmeet Singh, the deputy commissioner of police of Delhi’s central district. We sent the DCP queries regarding the CCTV clip and the allegations of the family and the eyewitnesses. Without answering our questions, the DCP responded, “A FIR has been registered for misleading and misinformation spread by your official twitter handle in PS IP Estate. Your intentions speak a lot … You wanted to give things a different turn. PM Report clearly states the reason of death.”

We pointed out to the DCP that The Caravan had tweeted the eyewitness accounts as well as the post-mortem’s findings, and repeated our questions seeking the police version. The DCP responded, “We will produce the complete evidence as required under Indian Evidence Act in court of law. PM Report clearly states the cause of death. No bullet was fired.” He added, “You are imagining things which never happened.”

Much of the speculation around Navreet’s death can be cleared if the police releases the CCTV footage that it took custody of on 26 January, at the Andhra Education Society, and if it clarifies the source of the clip circulated by media channels. The interpretation of the post-mortem report by the two autopsy experts, including the British doctor who spoke to The Guardian, raises the need for clear explanations from the police, which they refused to give to The Caravan. We will update the piece if any such clarification is received.

Editors’ note: An image, of Delhi Police officials in the basement of the Andhra Education Society building, was added to this piece after it was published.