He wondered SHO Rattan Singh had not bothered to register even an FIR though the media had reported the shameful incident.

The district authorities told Mr Vaghela that orders for shifting of the SHO to the police lines had been issued today by the SSP, Ferozepore. Mr Vaghela felt that a fair inquiry could not be possible, if the SHO was not shifted from the Khuikhera police station of the Fazilka subdivision.

Mr Vaghela reached the village today and conducted an open inquiry in the lawns of Government Senior Secondary School. Over 12 residents, including members of Rai Sikh, Mazhabi Sikh and other backward classes, narrated the incident that had brought the village again in limelight.

Mr Vaghela, assisted by Mr Tenzin Vengyal Director of the state commission, was told by the residents that some influential persons, affiliated with the ruling party, and the Sarpanch of the village, had intercepted Jangir Singh and his relatives on their way to Patrewala village. They said one resident of the Mazhabi Sikh and two of Sikriband communities were forcibly taken to the house of the Sarpanch, beaten up there, forced to consume urine in slippers and liquor. They were Naamdharis. They wanted to teach them a lesson over an altercation between the two groups of students.

The witnesses told the commission that two ASIs and SHO Rattan Singh of the Khuikhera police station had not only detained the complainants but also humiliated other members of the affected families in public and at the police station. They were allegedly forced to sign a letter of compromise under threat by the police. No officer listened to any complaints. Rather they were getting threats of life, if continued praying for justice.

However, Mr Gurdas Singh Jakhar, Sarpanch of the village, said he was present with members of his family at a cultural function held at college on that evening and had no role in the incident.

Mr Vaghela listened to three students, named in the complaint as the root cause of the incident, in a separate room.

Mr Vaghela later told newsmen that he would submit his findings in 15 days. Meanwhile the commission will recommend that the police officers, who had not handled the matter properly and tried to shield the “miscreants”, should also be booked under Section 4 of the Atrocities on Harijans Act, if they were indicted in the inquiry report.