Under Sl. No. 22/52, the list identifies the 10 August 1988 cremation of Amrik Singh, s/o Gurmej Singh Mahajan, r/o Ratoke, carried out by SHO Mohinder Singh of Valtoha police station under FIR No. 102/88. There is no postmortem report number. The cause of death is given as “police encounter”.

The Committee has the following information in this case through its Incident-Report Form No. CCDP/01573. The main informant in this case is the victim’s son Gurnam Singh.

Amrik Singh, s/o Gurmej Singh, a mason belonging to a poor Mazhabi family, was a resident of Mazhabian Da Vehra in Rattoke village in Patti subdivision of Amritsar district. He was married to Joginder Kaur with two sons, Gurnam Singh and Nishan Singh; they are now 20 and 18. Amrik focused on his work, commuting between his home and worksite on his bicycle. He had no political or militant connections and had never been arrested or interrogated prior to his killing.

On 9 August 1988 morning, Amrik, as usual, left for his worksite at village Dasuwal where he was building a drainage system. Around 9 a.m. that day, when Amrik and his colleagues had just started attending to their work, the Valtoha police, led by SI Mohinder Singh, got involved in an exchange of fire with a group of militants. The police chased the militants, firing at them. One of the bullets fired by the police hit Amrik Singh in his head and he died instantaneously. His family learned about his killing around 11 a.m. when Valtoha police took Amrik’s father Gurmej Singh down to the site to identify the dead body. The police officers expressed regret and admitted that they had killed an innocent person by mistake.

The next morning, after the postmortem, the police handed the body over to the family members for the cremation, which was carried out at their village. However, the following day, the newspapers published a report, on the basis of a police handout, stating that a militant had been killed in an encounter at Dasuwal village. Amrik’s family members had neither the resources nor the necessary contacts to challenge the lie and, fearing further reprisals, decided to keep quiet.

However, Amrik’s father Gurmej Singh was unable to cope with the killing of his innocent son and the police injustice in declaring him a militant. Inconsolable, he died two months later from a heart attack.

Once again we notice that although his family members actually carried out his cremation at the victim’s village, the CBI’s list claims that SHO Mohinder Singh of Valtoha police performed it at Patti cremation ground.

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