Under Sl. No. 121/392, the list identifies the 18 April 1991 cremation of Niranjan Singh, s/o Boor Singh, r/o Behla village, carried out by Inspector Harbans Singh of Tarn Taran’s city police station under FIR No. 58/91. The postmortem report is marked as PS 50/91 and the cause of death is mentioned as “firearm injuries”.

The Committee has the following information through its Incident-Report Form No. CCDP/00378. The main informant is Balwinder Kaur, the victim’s widow.

Fifty-five year old Niranjan Singh, son of Boor Singh and Kartar Kaur, was a small farmer with only three acres of land at village Behla, post office Rataul, in Tarn Taran subdivision of Amritsar district. He was married to Balwinder Kaur, and had three sons and a daughter. The eldest daughter Ranjit Kaur is now in her thirties. His second son Sakattar Singh was, in June 1992, twenty-two years old. To support his large family, Niranjan Singh used to sell milk from three buffaloes he owned. He had no trouble with the police and had never been suspected of political or militant associations.

In the morning of 8 June 1992, around 10 a.m., a large police force led by SSP Ajit Singh Sandhu and SP (Operations) Khubi Ram, surrounded village Behla on the basis of information that a group of militants had been operating from the abandoned house of a former legislator Manjinder Singh. The police and the para-military forces surrounded the village from all sides and decided to storm the suspected house by taking cover behind a human shield. They built this shield by selecting eight residents of the village. Niranjan Singh was one of the persons chosen for the purpose. His sons Sakatter Singh and Sukhchain Singh were also included. Others chosen to form the human shield were Kartar Singh, s/o Aasa Singh, Lakhwinder Singh, s/o Channan Singh, Ajit Singh, s/o Mangal Singh and one Gurmej Singh.

Police officers asked these people to form a frontal phalanx, and to walk ahead of their forces into the marked house. Once inside, the police discovered that the house had a bunker without a visible approach and was probably connected to an underground exit. The police force then started demolishing the cellar’s roof, but kept the villagers in front of them. Soon, the militants holed up in the celler started firing. The police retaliated from behind the human shield. The encounter lasted 32 hours. Six persons constituting the human shield, including Niranjan Singh and his son Sakatter Singh, were killed. His second son Sukhchain Singh escaped with bullet injuries on his back.

Three militants holed up inside the bunker were also killed. There names are: [1] Surjit Singh Behla, s/o Tarlok Singh, [2] Sukhdev Singh Maddi, s/o Santokh Singh, both of Behla village, and [3] Harbans Singh of Sarhali Kalan.

The police declared all nine persons killed in this encounter, including the six who constituted the human shield, as militants and cremated them without permitting the family members to attend.

The incident provoked angry newspaper reports and editorial comment and the Punjab government ordered an inquiry to stifle the criticism. There was, however, no follow up and no action taken against those responsible for the action.

The CBI curiously lists Niranjan Singh’s cremation as having occurred over a year earlier than its actual date. Also, the CBI list of partially identified cremations duplicates the record of Niranjan Singh’s death, although in that entry, it properly records the date of his cremation. The CBI list partially identifies the cremations of Surjeet Singh, r/o Behala, Sikkatar Singh, r/o Behala, Niranjan Singh, r/o Behala, Madan Singh, alias Maddi, and Kartar Singh, r/o Behala under Sl. Nos. 69/703, 70/704, 71/705, 72/706, and 73/708, respectively, all carried out on 9 June 1992 by SHO Gurbachan Singh of Tarn Taran City police station under the same FIR No. 57/92. The postmortem reports are marked as PS-23/92, SN-1092, SN-11/92, OPG-11/92, and OPG-22/92, respectively. The cause of death is given as “police encounter”. The CBI list fully identifies the cremations of Ajit Singh, s/o Mangal Singh, r/o Behla, Lakhwinder Singh, s/o Chanan Singh Jat, r/o Warpal, and Harbhans Singh, s/o Mehr Singh Jat, r/o Sarhali, under Sl. Nos. 188/707, 189/709, and 190/710 respectively.

These cremations from the identified and partially identified lists of the CBI do not account for the body of Gurmej Singh, one of the six villagers forced to become a human shield and killed. The CBI’s list of unidentified cremations does not show any cremation on 9 June 1992.')"

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