Under Sl. No. 37/99 and 38/100, the list identifies two 3 July 1989 cremations carried out by the SHO of Harike police station, under FIR No. 51/89. They are of [1] Sarbjeet Singh, s/o Tirath Singh, r/o Nagoke, and [2] Gurbir Singh alias Raju, s/o Joginder, r/o Jhabbal. The postmortem reports are marked as VKA 49/89 and VKA 50/89. The cause of death is given as “firearm injuries”.

The Committee has the following information in the case of Sarbjeet Singh through its Incident-Report Form No. CCDP/01437. The main informant is his widow Kulbir Kaur.

Sarabjit Singh, s/o Tirath Singh, was 27 and lived in Nagoke village, Patti Lakhi Ki, under Verowal police station within Tarn Taran subdivision of Amritsar district. A clerk with the Punjab State Electricity Board, posted at Nagoke sub-station, Sarabjit was married to Kulbir Kaur with two young sons. He was a baptized Sikh sympathetic to the Akali Dal, but had no militant connections.

On 27 June 1989 morning, SHO Anokh Singh of Verowal police station raided Sarabjit’s house and detained him in illegal custody under interrogation for four days. Only then did he produce Sarabjit in the court of a judicial magistrate at Tarn Taran in connection with a TADA case and seek remand for investigation. The magistrate granted the remand and directed the police to produce Sarabjit in the court again on 3 July 1989. On 2 July, Sarabjit’s elder brother Arjan Singh and other village elders went and met him in the Verowal police lock up and discussed their legal concerns.

On the morning of 3rd July, Sarabjit’s family members were getting ready to go to the court in Tarn Taran where he was to be produced when they read a newspaper report about an encounter, near village Dhunn Dhahe under Harike police station. The report disclosed the killing of Sarabjit Singh and Gurinder Singh when the police were allegedly taking them to recover weapons. The report quoted the police sources as claiming that a group of militants attacked the police convoy with the intention of rescuing Sarabjit Singh and Gurinder Singh and, in the ensuing exchange of fire, both of them and another unidentified militant got killed.

After reading the report that appeared in Ajit, the family members, accompanied by village elders, went and met the SSP of Tarn Taran to request him to give Sarabjit’s body to the family for cremation. The SSP refused, but allowed them to take a look at the body at Patti hospital where it had been sent for postmortem. The police carried out the cremation.

The CBI’s list mentions the cremation of Gurbir Singh [Sl. No. 38/100], which the SHO of Harike carried out on 03 July 1989 along with the cremation of Sarbjeet Singh at Tarn Taran. It is not clear whether Gurbir Singh was the second person killed in the alleged encounter. The third cremation is recorded in the CBI’s unidentified list under Sl. No. 50/98 as having been carried out by the SHO of Harike police station, under FIR No. 51/89, on 03 July 1989. The postmortem report is marked as VKA-51/89.')"

Report | Database | Backgrounder |Articles | Legal Battles | Interviews | Links |Get Involved |
News |Advocacy | About us | Home | Search this site |
Copyright©CIIP