Under Sl. No. 130/452, the list identifies the 09 July 1991 cremation of Amarjit Singh alias Amba, s/o Kashmir Singh, r/o Ransinghwala, carried out by SHO Surinder Singh of Valtoha police station under FIR No. 48/91. The postmortem report is marked as SLG?62/91. The cause of death is given as “encounter”.

The Committee has the following information through its Incident-Report Form No. CCDP/01535. The main informant is Kashmir Singh, the victim’s father.

Thirty-six year old Amarjit Singh, s/o Kashmir Singh and Charan Kaur, was a farmer, resident of village Ram Singh Wala, post office Bhangala under Valtoha police station in Patti subdivision of Amritsar district. As the eldest of five brothers, Amarjit had the responsibility of assisting his father in running the family. Starting 1989, however, he began to encounter problems with the police who suspected him of having links with Sikh militants. Fearing custodial torture, Amarjit left his house and joined the militant underground.

The police atrocities against other family members became so intense that all of them left their village and went into hiding. The police did not give the family respite until they had captured and killed Amarjit.

A group of officers led by DSP Sukhdev Singh Brar of Valtoha police captured Amarjit on 6 July 1991 from the farmhouse of Khushal Singh in village Saidon. Amarjit had been friendly with Khushal Singh’s sons, Darshan Singh and Udham Singh. Amarjit was taken to Valtoha police station where he remained in illegal custody for the next two days. Amarjit was killed in an “encounter” that the police staged near village Bahadar Nagar in the night between the 08th and 9th of July. The encounter was reported in several Punjabi newspapers.

The police carried out the cremations. Close family members were themselves in hiding from the police and could not attend the cremation. The police prevented distant relatives, who came to the cremation ground, from attending the cremation.')"

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