CHANDIGARH: Serious questions have been raised over the functioning of the Chandigarh Police after environmental activist Samita Kaur alleged that an FIR connected with a rally held on July 30, 2026, includes the name of a man who died in 2025.In a strongly worded social media post, Kaur questioned how a deceased person could have been named in a case relating to an event that allegedly took place nearly a year after his death.“This happens only in Chandigarh,” Kaur wrote, alleging that an FIR had been registered against a man who passed away in 2025 in connection with “yesterday’s rally held on 30th July, 2026.”
She questioned the reliability of the police process, asking: “Can we trust police?”
Kaur went further, calling the alleged error an embarrassment and suggesting that it could indicate that criminal cases, or “parchas”, are sometimes registered without adequate verification of the identities and circumstances of the people named.
A basic question: how can a deceased person be an accused?
If the allegation is correct, the issue raises a fundamental question about the preparation and verification of police records.
A person who died in 2025 obviously could not have participated in a rally held in 2026.
That does not automatically establish that the entire FIR is false or fabricated. It does, however, raise an obvious question about how the person’s name came to be included in the FIR and whether basic verification was carried out before the case was registered.
The police will need to clarify whether the name was entered deliberately, whether it was the result of mistaken identity, whether there was an error in the FIR, or whether the alleged inclusion occurred because of incorrect information supplied to investigators.
One name can raise a much bigger issue
The controversy is not merely about one name.
If a deceased person has indeed been named as an accused in a case concerning a subsequent event, the incident could raise broader concerns about the reliability of the process through which FIRs are prepared.
An FIR is the foundation of a criminal investigation. Names, dates, locations and allegations are not supposed to be matters of guesswork.
That is why any unexplained discrepancy involving a deceased individual deserves a clear official explanation.
Was the error corrected?
The Chandigarh Police should answer some straightforward questions.
When was the FIR registered?
Who supplied the names of the alleged accused?
Was the identity of every person named in the FIR verified?
When did the police learn that the individual allegedly named had died in 2025?
Was the FIR subsequently corrected?
If the name was entered mistakenly, who was responsible for the error?
And most importantly, how can the public be expected to have confidence in police investigations if such a basic discrepancy is allowed to occur?
These questions should not be dismissed as political criticism.
They go directly to the credibility of the criminal justice process.
The larger concern over “parchas”
Kaur’s allegation that cases are registered “randomly” is much more serious and requires evidence. It should therefore be investigated rather than simply accepted as fact.
But the alleged FIR discrepancy provides an opportunity to examine a broader concern frequently raised by citizens and political activists: whether criminal cases arising from protests and rallies are always based on carefully verified evidence and clearly identified individuals.
If police have made a genuine clerical or identification mistake, the appropriate response should be transparency and correction.
If the allegation turns out to be unfounded, the police should publicly clarify the facts.
Either way, silence is not an adequate response.
Chandigarh Police faces a credibility test
The controversy comes at a time when public confidence in policing increasingly depends not only on arrests and FIRs but also on the accuracy and transparency of police procedures.
An FIR involving a deceased person, if verified, would be more than an embarrassing administrative mistake. It would raise questions about the quality of verification before criminal proceedings are initiated.
For the police, therefore, the answer should be factual and immediate.
Was the deceased person actually named in the FIR?
If yes, why?
Was it an error?
Who made it?
Has it been corrected?
And what safeguards will prevent the same thing from happening again?
Until those questions are answered, Samita Kaur’s post will continue to raise an uncomfortable question about the credibility of the system:
If the police can allegedly name someone who was already dead when the incident occurred, how can ordinary citizens be certain that everyone else named in such cases has been correctly identified?