Under Sl. No. 50/125, the list identifies the 18 August 1989 cremation of Hazara Singh, s/o Jaswant Singh, r/o Booh, carried out by ASI Charan Singh of Harike police station under FIR No. 62/89. The postmortem report is marked as VKA 83/89 and the death is attributed to “police encounter”.

The Committee has the following information through its Incident-Report Form No. CCDP/01587. The main informant is the victim’s brother Malkeet Singh.

The victim’s name, misspelled on the CBI’s list, was Hazura Singh. The son of Salwant Singh and Jagtar Kaur from village Booh under Harike police station in Patti subdivision of Amritsar district, Hazura was only 20. He had given up school to join his father working on his farm. Hazura, a baptized Sikh, was unmarried.

Hazura supported the Akali agitation for more autonomy for Punjab and, even as a teenager, wanted to court arrest to demonstrate his personal commitment. He was also a local supporter of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Because of his political views, the police began to pick him up regularly for interrogation after Operation Blue Star. Later, when the momentum of the militant resistance increased, the police began to suspect his links and tortured him brutally several times to break him down and obtain confessions. As his house was located in the fringes of the village, the police thought that he was sheltering and feeding militants.

In July and August of 1989, the Harike police raided his house a number of times planning to arrest him. Hazura was terrified of the prospect of torture and kept away from the police for some days. The police then detained all of his family members, including his mother and sisters, and tortured them brutally. Members of the village council intervened and got them released by promising to locate Hazura and produce him before the police. Hazura was never far from the village and used to visit his house and help his father on the land. However, he slept elsewhere from fear that the police may pick him up in a nocturnal raid.

On 17 August 1989 morning, Hazura Singh came home and started to work in his fields when SHO Makhan Singh of Harike police station came with a large force and arrested him in the presence of his entire family. Hazura Singh, who was unarmed, tried to run away, but he was caught and severely beaten by the police officers with sticks and rifle butts, right on the spot. The police then lifted him into a police vehicle and drove away. Shortly thereafter, the family members heard bursts of gunfire. The news of his killing in a police encounter was relayed on the Punjabi program of the All India Radio that same afternoon. The family was not informed about the killing or about the cremation carried out by the police the next day. However, his father Salwant Singh managed to reach Patti cremation ground while his son’s pyre was still burning.

According to Malkeet Singh, Hazura’s brother, the police later arrested and killed their cousin Harjinder Singh, s/o Bagicha Singh, in a separate incident. ')"

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