Under Sl. No. 104/296, the list identifies the 14 November 1990 cremation of Sukhchain Singh alias Sukha, s/o Darshan Singh Jat, r/o Bhai Ladoo, carried out by ASI Pritam Singh of Patti police station under FIR No. 208/90. The postmortem report is marked as KS 1/90. The cause of death is said to be “police encounter”.

The Committee has the following information through its Incident-Report Form No. CCDP/01590. The main informant is the victim’s brother Lakhbir Singh.

Twenty-four year old Sukhchain Singh, s/o Darshan Singh and Balwinder Kaur, was a young farmer, resident of village Bhai Ladhu under Bhikhiwind police station in Patti subdivision of Amritsar district. He was married to Baljit Kaur and was the father of a son, Jatinder Singh, who is now 12.

A baptized Sikh, Sukhchain had taken active part in the agitation for greater autonomy for Punjab, launched by the Akali Dal in July 1982 and later joined by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Sukhchain followed the leadership of Bhindranwale. After Operation Blue Star, the police began to raid Sukhchain’s house regularly and detain him for questioning under torture about his political and militant connections. In 1987, the Valtoha police registered a case against him under the Arms Act and sent him to jail. The police had framed him without any evidence, and Sukhchain was able to obtain his release on bail within six months. But the police harassment and raids continued and Sukhchain decided to leave home. The police then began to target his family members, arresting his father and brother Lakhbir Singh often and subjecting them to brutal torture. The police also demolished his ancestral house in the village, forcing his family to live as refugees with friends and relatives.

In the night between 13 and 14 November 1990, Sukhchain and one of his associates Mukhtiar Singh from Varnala village, were trapped in a police cordon near a patrol pump on the road to Patti. There was an exchange of fire and the police shot both of them dead. After the postmortem, the police carried out the cremations, but allowed his mother and some other family members to attend.

All of the Punjab newspapers reported the encounter and the killing of Sukhchain Singh and Mukhtiar Singh, s/o Hardeep Singh of Varnala village under Valtoha police station. However, the CBI’s list of identified cremations records only the cremation of Sukhchain Singh on 14 November. The list of partially identified cremations, under Sl. No. 24/297, shows that Mukhtiar Singh alias Mukha, s/o Hardeep Singh was cremated on 29 November 1990 by SHO Jagdish Singh of Tarn Taran’s Sadar police station under FIR No. 116/90. It is not clear why Mukhtiar’s cremation was carried out nearly two weeks later by officials of a different police station under a dissimilar FIR No., if he had also been killed along with Sukhchain Singh in the same encounter in the night between 13 and 14 November. The FIR No. under which Mukhtiar was cremated matches the FIR No. of cremations carried out under Sl. Nos. 25/301 and 26/302, partially identified as Bagal Singh, r/o Hoshiarpur and Gurdeep Singh Mehra, r/o Pakhoke. Mukhtiar Singh and Bagal Singh even share the same postmortem report number. ')"

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