SHO Karnail Singh of Bhikiwind- Committee for Information and Initiative on Punjab (CIIP)

Under Sl. Nos. 9/032, 10/033, 11/034, 12/035, 14/044, 15/045, 16/046, 17/047 and 18/048, the list identifies nine cremations carried out by SHO Karnail Singh of Bhikiwind police station on 11 May 1988 under FIR No. 66/88. They are of: [1] Gurnam Singh, s/o Harbhajan Singh, r/o Ghariyala, [2] Darbara Singh, s/o Lakshman Singh, r/o Thatha, [3] Jaswant Singh, s/o Jora Singh, r/o Thatha, [4] Pratap Singh, s/o Resham Singh, r/o Kalsian, [5] Bhupinder Singh, s/o Kuldip Singh r/o Mehadpur, [6] Bhag Singh, s/o Kashmir Singh, r/o Palazadi Bud Singh, [7] Pritpal Singh, s/o Gurudayal Singh, r/o Gagobooha, [8] Surjan Singh, s/o Massa Singh, r/o Padri and [9] Gurnam Singh, s/o Jarnail Singh, r/o Thatha. The postmortem reports are marked as SSA-41/88, SS-42/88, SS-43/88, SS-44/88, VKA-58/88, VKA-59/88, VKA-60/88, VKA-61/88 and VKA-62/88. The cause of death in the first four cases is said to be “not available” and in the next five cases given as “police encounter”.

The Committee has the following information in these cases through its Incident-Report Form Nos. CCDP/01526, 01527, 01588, 01694, 01557, 01558, and 01528. The main informants are Darbara Singh’s father Lachhman Singh; Jaswant Singh’s father Jagir Singh Dodhi; Pratap Singh’s widow Kulwinder Kaur; Bhag Singh’s father Kashmir Singh; Pritpal Singh’s brother Narinder Pal Singh; Harbhajan Singh, a village guard, in the case of Surjan Singh; and Gurnam Singh’s father Jarnail Singh.

Twenty-two year old Darbara Singh, s/o Lachhman Singh and Gurbakhsh Kaur, was a resident of Bajwa Patti in village Thatha, post office Ghariala under Bhikhiwind police station in Patti subdivision of Amritsar district. He had given up school to join Dam Dami Taksal, the center of orthodox Sikh learning once headed by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, to become a Sikh missionary. Darbara Singh was unmarried. By virtue of this association, he became a suspect and the police began to raid his house and harass his family members.

Twenty-two year old Jaswant Singh, s/o Jagir Singh and Preetam Kaur, was a resident of Sidhu Patti in the same village of Thatha and the eldest of four brothers. Two of his brothers were soldiers in the Indian army. After completing the VIIIth standard of his school education, he began to help his father with his agricultural work. He was also unmarried.

Forty-one year old Pratap Singh, s/o Resham Singh and Bakhshish Kaur, was a farmer from Bunge Wale in Kalsian Kalan under Bhikhiwind police station in Patti subdivision of Amritsar district. He was married to Kulwinder Kaur, and had three daughters, and a son who is the eldest. Their son Gursahib Singh is now 29. The youngest daughter Nirmal Kaur is 20.

Pratap Singh was a baptized Sikh and very religious-minded and, like most Sikhs, had been very upset with the government of India for its June 1984 Operation Blue Star. Pratap Singh’s house in his village was located in the outskirts, close to his fields, and the police began to suspect him of sheltering and feeding militants. As the police started raiding his house regularly, Pratap Singh, fearing torture and humiliation, decided to go underground. The police detained and interrogated other members of his family, including the women. His brother Kulbir Singh was held at Bhikhiwind police station and tortured severally. Pratap Singh, however, did not surrender himself to the police.

The person wrongly identified in the list as Bhag Singh was Tara Singh alias Taru. The youngest of three sons of Kashmir Singh and Jagir Kaur, he was 17-year old and a resident of Talwandi Budh Singh, mentioned in the list as Palazadi Bud Singh, post office Bhangala, in Patti subdivision of Amritsar district. A baptized Sikh with a strong religious disposition, Tara Singh completed his matriculation in March 1988 and then joined the ranks of the militant underground. He never returned home again. Tara Singh was unmarried.

Pritpal Singh, s/o Gurdial Singh and Kuldeep Kaur, was only 18, and a resident of village and post office Gaggo Booha under Jhabbal police station in Tarn Taran subdivision of Amritsar district. A religious-minded boy from a baptized Sikh family, Pritapal abandoned school without completing the Vth standard and began to take interest in the Sikh militant movement. But the police had not arrested or interrogated him as yet.

Twenty-four year old Surjan Singh, s/o Massa Singh and Tej Kaur, was from village Padhri Nikki, post office Padhri Kalan, in Tarn Taran subdivision of Amrisar district. He was married with four children and, along with his four brothers, engaged in farming. Surjan Singh was suspected of maintaining militant connections and had been arrested in 1987 under the Arms Act. He obtained his release on a bail order six months later and went away from his house to join the militant underground.

Seventeen-year old Gurnam Singh, s/o Jarnail Singh and Jeeto, from Sidhu Patti in Thatha village in Patti subdivision of Amritsar district was the youngest of three brothers. After completing his school education, Gurnam received training as a compounder under a private doctor and set up his own medical practice in the village. His was an unauthorized medical practice, common in Punjab’s countryside as also in other rural parts of India, tolerated by the authorities largely because qualified doctors flock to cities. But the police also suspected him of maintaining connections with the militant underground.

All nine persons were killed in complex incidents of “encounters”, involving both the Punjab police and the Central Reserve Police Force, that took place on 10 May 1988. According to a report published in the Punjabi daily Ajit on 12 May 1988, the series of encounters began after Mohinder Kumar Khairat, Commandent of 19 Battalion of the CRPF, managed to recover some diaries belonging to Gurnam Singh Ghariala following a raid he conducted on a farmhouse in village Ghariala. Gurnam Singh Ghariala himself escaped the raid, but the security forces obtained the addresses of several wanted terrorists from the diaries that he had left behind. A joint force of the CRPF and the Punjab police then laid a siege at village Makhi Kalan and killed Gurnam Singh Ghariala and Bega Singh. Their companions escaped the encounter but were chased and killed at Kalsian and Sadhra villages. Some others were killed in an exchange of fire at Ajaib Singh’s tubewell in village Sadhra. The information was provided to the press by Amrisar’s SSP Sanjiv Gupta.

We have not been able to identify who witnessed these “encounters”, and the family members we spoke to did not suggest that they had been faked. All of them reached Bhikhiwind police station the same day, after receiving information about the incident from private sources, and were able to identify the dead bodies. Surprisingly, the police did not object to returning the dead bodies for their cremation to the relatives if members of the village councils accompanied them and signed certain papers. According to the relatives of Darbara Singh, Jaswant Singh and Gurnam Singh, all from Thatha village, the police returned the dead bodies and the cremations were carried out at the village cremation ground itself.

Relatives of Pratap Singh came to know about the “encounter” from a television report broadcast on the 10th May evening and they reached the police station the next morning. The police had already arranged for the cremations at Patti, and allowed the family members and other village elders who accompanied them to attend.

Tara Singh’s father Kashmir Singh identified his son’s body at the Patti hospital. The body was cremated at the Patti cremation ground.

Pritpal Singh’s mother and his aunt were also able to reach the police station only on the 11th. No male member of the family or members of the village council had accompanied them. By the time they turned up, the cremation, organized by the police, was underway. But they were allowed to attend.

No member of Surjan Singh’s family was able to reach the police station, and the Bhikhiwind police carried out the cremation by declaring it unclaimed.

It is a mystery that, whereas the relatives of Darbara Singh, Jaswant Singh and Gurnam Singh claim to have taken the dead bodies to their villages for the cremations, the CBI’s list shows all the cremations to have been carried out by SHO Karnail Singh of Bhikiwind police station at Patti cremation ground. ')"

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