Under Sl. No. 135/492, the list identifies the 07 August 1991 cremation of Santok Singh, s/o Surjit Singh, r/o Jaghal, carried out by SHO Gurnam Singh of Harike police station under FIR No. 38/91. The postmortem report is marked as OPG 10/91. The cause of death is given as “police encounter”.

The Committee has the following information in this case through its Incident-Report Form No. CCDP/01699. The main informant is Malkeet Singh Pradhan, the victim’s brother-in-law.

Twenty-five year old Santokh Singh, son of Surjit Singh and Swaran Kaur, resident of village Jaspal, under Khalchian police station, in Baba Bakala subdivision of Amritsar district, was an employee of the Punjab State Electricity Board and was posted at the sub-divisional office at Butari. Santokh did not have a criminal background, but in February 1989 his elder brother Gurbhej Singh had been arrested and killed in a faked encounter staged near Adampur in Jalandhar district. Santokh was married with a son Gagandeep who is now 12. His widow has since gone back to her parents and is remarried.

In the evening of 31 July 1991, around 6 p.m., Santokh returned home after work. Two hours later, a large group of policemen led by SHO Major Singh of Tarn Taran’s Sadar police station raided his house and took Santokh into custody. All of the family members were home and began to cry as the officers took him away. SHO Major Singh told them not to worry and to come to the police station the next morning. He said that the police needed Santokh for interrogation and would release him after some days.

The next morning, Swaran Kaur, accompanied by members of the village council and some of her relatives, went to the Sadar police station and met the SHO. The SHO repeated his promise to release Santokh after his interrogation some days later. Over the next days, she also met SP (Operations) Khubi Ram and SSP Narinder Pal Singh several times to request them to intervene to save her son’s life. They listened to her pleas but remained noncommittal.

SHO Major Singh soon refused to see Swaran Kaur, who continued her efforts to trace her son without any success. Swaran Kaur realized that her son could not be alive. But she did not know exactly what happened to him.

In 1995, Swaran Kaur filed a petition before the High Court of Punjab and Haryana to ask for an independent inquiry. The High Court ordered the CBI to investigate her complaint. The investigation and its findings resulted in the institution of a case against SHO Major Singh. The trial is in progress. ')"

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