Kalyani Singh, the daughter of a Himachal Pradesh High Court judge was arrested by the CBI on Wednesday in connection with the murder of a former national level shooter Sukhmanpreet Singh Sidhu alias Sippy Sidhu who was shot dead on the night of September 20, 2015 at a public park in Chandigarh.
Kalyani Singh, a college lecturer, is the daughter of Himachal Pradesh High Court judge Justice Sabina who is also the acting Chief Justice of the High Court.
The murder is suspected to be the outcome of a relationship that went sour.
On Wednesday, a CBI spokesperson said, "During further investigation, the alleged involvement of the accused (Kalyani Singh) came forth in the case. Accordingly, she was examined and arrested."
The special judge gave the CBI a four-day remand to interrogate Kalyani Singh. The agency had said since the early stages of the investigation in 2016 that "a woman was accompanying the murderer".
A .12 bore gun was used in the crime and four bullets were fired from it. The UT Police had registered a case of murder at the Sector 26 police station.
The case was then handed over to the CBI in January 2016 after the intervention of the Punjab Governor, who is also the Chandigarh UT Administrator. In September that year, the CBI announced Rs 5 lakh for anyone with clues. Later the reward was increased to Rs 10 lakh.
In a newspaper advertisement at the time, the CBI said, "There is reason to believe that a woman was accompanying Sippy's killer at the time of the murder. The said woman is also being given this opportunity to come forward and contact us if she is innocent. Otherwise, it shall be presumed that she was a party to the offence."
Speaking to The Indian Express, Sidhu’s mother, Deepinder Kaur Sidhu, said that she had been saying from day one that Kalyani must be questioned to find out who killed her son.
She said she had told the investigating agencies that it was Kalyani who called Sippy to the park in Sector 27 on the day of the murder.
