His wife was also in hiding and her younger sons were too young to know the details of the incident

Under Sl. Nos. 126/419, 127/420, and 128/421, the list identifies three cremations on 26 May 1991 carried out by ASI Major Singh of Tarn Taran’s Sadar police station under FIR No. 57/91. They are of: [1] Harbej Singh alias Beja, s/o Joga Singh, r/o Lal Pura, [2] Kabul Singh, s/o Sahib Singh, r/o Miani Kalan, [3] Balwinder Singh, s/o Surjan Singh Mazhabi, r/o Banwali Pura. The postmortem reports are marked as GSD?34/91, GSD?35/91 and GSD?36/91. The cause of death is stated to be “encounter”.

The Committee has the following information in the case of Harbej Singh through its Incident-Report Form No. CCDP/01430. The main informant is Joga Singh, the father of Harbej Singh.

According to Joga Singh, the CBI has mistakenly recorded his son’s name as Harbej Singh. His actual name was Gurbhej Singh, alias Bheja. Twenty years old, Gurbhej Singh was the eldest of five brothers and had become involved in the militant movement soon after finishing his schooling. He was unmarried and lived in Lalpura, Randhawa Patti under Tarn Taran Sadar police station until he decided to leave the house to join the militant underground. Tarn Taran police used to pick up his parents, Joga Singh and Kashmir Kaur, torturing them in illegal custody for information and pressuring them to produce Gurbhej Singh. But they were not able to provide information because Gurbhej Singh had cut off all contact with them. Joga Singh was charged under TADA for harboring terrorists and sent to jail where he remained for nearly three years. His wife Kashmir Kaur went into hiding to save her young children. The police confiscated all of the household goods. Joga Singh was still in jail when the police killed Gurbhej Singh.

Gurbhej Singh was killed on 26 May 1991 in an incident that the police calls an “encounter”. It happened at Gurdwara Patshahi at village Sangha after the police surrounded it and opened fire. Four persons including Gurbhej Singh and the head priest of the Gurdwara, Baba Kabal Singh, were killed. The names of the other two killed in the incident are: [1] Balwinder Singh of Bengalipur, who is mentioned in the CBI’s list under Sl. No. 128/421, and [2] and Kashmir Singh of Kotli Nazirpur, wo does not figure in the CBI’s lists.

Joga Singh was in jail at that time. His wife was also in hiding and her younger sons were too young to know the details of the incident. Hence they are not in a position to claim if Gurbhej and his associates had been captured first and then shown killed in an encounter or whether they died in a genuine confrontation. On 27 May 1991, Ajit and Jagbani reported the incident, based on the official briefing, as an encounter.

The family never saw the dead body and police carried out the cremation without even informing Joga Singh in jail.

The Punjab police also killed Gurbhej Singh’s maternal uncle Bara Singh, s/o Channan Singh of Chambal village near Sheron in Tarn Taran subdivision, in a separate incident. ')"

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