They were regularly tortured and told to help procure Natha Singh’s arrest

Under Sl. No. 146/579, the list identifies the cremation of Natha Singh, s/o Dalip Singh Jat, r/o Talwandi Suba Singh carried out by SHO Puran Singh on 25 November 1991. The postmortem report is numbered SS 50/91. The case belonged to Harike police station under FIR No. 68/91 and the cause of death is mentioned as “encounter”.

The Committee has the following information in this case through its Incident-Report Form No. CCDP/01366. The main informant is Fateh Singh, the victim’s brother.

Natha Singh, from Talwandi Subha Singh, post office Ghariala, under Patti police station, in Patti subdivision of Amritsar district, was a 21 year old unmarried farmer. His father Dalip Singh had passed away in 1988. Natha Singh began to live in the farmhouse to look after his fields, but the police suspected him of sheltering militants and giving them food. He was arrested on such charges soon after his father’s death and kept in Amritsar jail for one and a half years. When the police continued to harass him even after his release on bail, Natha Singh became a fugitive. The police then started torturing his relatives, particularly his brothers. They were regularly tortured and told to help procure Natha Singh’s arrest.

On 24 November 1991, around 8 a.m., Natha Singh and his friend Satnam Singh, s/o Baba Karnail Singh of Jand village, were cycling down to Pangota village where Natha Singh’s cousin-sister Bhajan Kaur lived. As they entered the village, they found themselves surrounded by a group of policemen from Harike police station in three vehicles, led by SHO Puran Singh. The police took both boys into custody and drove away in police vehicles. Bhajan Kaur’s husband Pashaura Singh sent a message about the arrest to Talwandi Subha Singh. That same night, however, both Natha Singh and Satnam Singh were declared dead in an encounter that was staged near village Sargana. Newspaper reports carried Natha Singh’s name, but Satnam Singh was declared to be an unidentified militant. The police cremated the dead bodies at Patti on 25 November 1991 in the presence of family members. But Satnam Singh’s cremation is placed on the list of partially identified cremations under Sl. No. 56/580. His postmortem report is marked as SS-51/91.')"

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