The CBI on Wednesday arrested Kalyani Singh, daughter of Himachal Pradesh High Court acting Chief Justice Sabina, in connection with the murder of national-level shooter Sukhmanpreet Singh, a.k.a. Sippy Sidhu, in Chandigarh in September 2015.
In January 2016, the case was transferred to the CBI, after which the investigating agency registered a fresh murder case.
Advocate Sippy, 36, was shot dead on September 20, 2015, in a park in Sector 27. A .12 bore gun was used in the crime and four bullets were fired from it.
Chandigarh Police had registered a case of murder and recorded the statements of various suspects, including the judge’s daughter, who is believed to be a close friend of the victim, though it failed to make any headway.
She was questioned twice by the police. Sidhu’s family had held protests alleging that she was being shielded by the police.
In December 2020, the CBI had informed the court that it has no evidence of the involvement of a former Punjab and Haryana high court judge’s daughter in the crime. However, it said it would keep investigations open as it has “strong suspicions about the role of a woman to eliminate Sippy.”
Sippy was a rifle shooter and had won the team gold along with Abhinav Bindra in the Punjab National Games in 2001.
He had been on the shooting circuit for more than 15 years and won medals regularly at various shooting competitions. He was also a joint secretary of the Paralympic Committee of India.
On January 22, 2016, Chandigarh Administrator Kaptan Singh Solanki had transferred the case to the CBI, which questioned the investigating officer and other police personnel.