Under Sl. Nos. 86/258, 87/259 and 88/260, the list identifies three 11 October 1990 cremations carried out by SHO Charan Singh of Valtoha police station under FIR No. 109/90. They are of: [1] Sukhdev Singh alias Kalla, s/o Virsa Singh Jat, r/o Dhulkouna, [2] Mukhtiar Singh alias Mand, s/o Amar Singh, r/o Bhuakohnu, and [3] Pappu, s/o Jarnail Singh, r/o Verowal. The postmortem reports are marked as MS 139/90, MS 141/90 and MS 140/90. The cause of death is given as “encounter”.

The Committee has the following information in the cases of Sukhdev Singh and Mukhtiar Singh through its Incident-Report Forms Nos. CCDP/01679 and 01680. The main informants are the victims’ mothers Gurmeet Kaur and Charan Kaur, respectively.

Twenty-six year old Sukhdev Singh alias Kala, son of Virsa Singh and Gurmeet Kaur, was an unmarried young farmer from Doohal Kohna village under Khemkaran police station in Patti subdivision of Amritsar district. Sukhdev’s father had died when he was still young. Hence, he had to give up school to help his brothers look after the agricultural farm. Sukhdev and his brothers were baptized Sikhs. According to Gurmeet Kaur, they were unconnected with the militant movement. Once in early 1990, the Khemkaran police arrested Sukhdev on the suspicion that he maintained links with the militants. The police tortured him under interrogation but released him ten days later at the intervention of the village council. No criminal case had been registered against him.

Twenty-year old Mukhtiar Singh alias Mand, son of Amar Singh and Charan Kaur, was also an unmarried boy from Bhoora Karimpura village under Khemkaran police station in Patti subdivision of Amritsar district. As with Sukhdev, Mukhtiar’s father had also expired and he used to help his brothers manage the family farm. Mukhtiar was also a baptized Sikh. Mukhtiar had never been arrested but, according to his mother, he did maintain contacts with members of the underground.

In the second week of October 1990, Sukhdev’s mother Gurmeet Kaur went to attend the cremation of a close relative who had expired at village Bhai Ladhu. She returned home on 10 October 1990 to find that her son Sukhdev was absent. On that day, Sukhdev along with Mukhtiar Singh of Doohla Kohna village and Pappu, s/o Jarnail Singh of Bharowal village, were standing at the Tahli bus stand when a group of officers from Valtoha police station shot them down. All of them were killed on the spot. Another young man from Asal Utar village, who was cutting fodder in a shop close to the bus stand, was also hit by bullets and killed.

On 11 October morning, some officers of the Valtoha police station came to Gurmeet Kaur’s house and asked her to reach the police station to identify her son’s dead body. On reaching the police station, she met the family members of the other two boys, killed by the police, who had also been also been called for the same purpose. However, after the identification, the police refused to hand over the dead bodies to the families and carried out the cremations after marking the bodies as unclaimed.

It is not clear what happened to the body of the fourth person who had been accidently killed. The CBI’s list of identified cremations shows only three cremations under FIR No. 109/90. No other cremation carried out by the Valtoha police under the FIR is recorded in the CBI lists of partially identified and unidentified cremations.

According to Charan Kaur, Mukhtiar’s mother, the police also arrested and killed two others known to her from Bhoora Karimpura village in faked encounters. They are: [1] Gurnam Singh, s/o Ranga Singh, and [2] Gursahib Singh, s/o Major Singh. ')"

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