Under Sl. No. 46/117, the list identifies the 08 August 1989 cremation of Dara Singh, s/o Geja Singh, r/o Verowali village, carried out by SHO Ram Nath of Valtoha police station under FIR No. 82/89. The postmortem report is marked as VKA 6689 and the cause of death is given as “firearm injuries”.

The Committee has the following information in this case through its Incident-Report Form No. CCDP/01663. The main informant is the victim’s son Rachhpal Singh.

Dara Singh, son of Geja Singh and Kartar Kaur, was a 50-year old farmer and milk vendor resident of Varnala village, Jamanian Di Patti, under Valtoha police station, in Patti subdivision of Amritsar district. He was a matriculate and married to Jagir Kaur with three adult children, Rachhpal Singh, his eldest son, and two daughters, Gurmeet Kaur and Nirmal Kaur. Dara Singh did not have a political background and was not associated with the militant movement. He had never been arrested by the police. His elder brother Pooran Singh was a police inspector.

In the night intervening the 7th and 8th of August 1989, Dara Singh was sleeping at the tube-well of his fields when a group of officers from Valtoha police station entered his fields, probably on the heels of some militants. Dara Singh woke up and came out of the tube-well room to see who was entering his fields when the policemen, thinking he was a militant, shot him down. Dara Singh died immediately.

The next morning, members of the village council and other residents of the village went to Valtoha police station to protest the killing of an innocent man. Inspector Pooran Singh also intervened. SHO Ram Nath agreed that the killing was a mistake and returned the dead body, after the postmortem, to the family members. The cremation was carried out at village Varnala. Dara Singh’s family also received compensation and his son Rachhpal Singh received a job.

It is not clear why the CBI’s list shows Dara Singh’s cremation as a police cremation carried out by SHO Ram Nath when it was actually performed at the victim’s village by his family members. It is also not clear if the compensation received by the family members followed a formal acknowledgment of a wrong killing or if it was an informal settlement. ')"

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