CHANDIGARH: Underground Sikh activist Jagir Singh Basarke’s 18 relations were killed when they assembled last week at Basarke Bhaini village in Amritsar district to celebrate a wedding.
The massacre was carried out by a police “cat”, Piara Singh, and his four accomplices, who belonged to Basarke Bhaini village. Piara Singh left the village some time ago to live at Chheratta near Amritsar and was fully armed. All the: weapons were provided to the group by the district police.
Jagir Singh is an important activist of Khalistan Commando Force. The occasion for the relations to get together was the wedding of Jagir Singhs brother, Angrez Singh, who survived the attack. Those who died, include Jagir Sings 60-yr-old father Mohinder. Singh, Jagir Singhs brother Jasbir Singh and the latter’s son Gurvail Singh (15) and daughter Bholan (18). In all nine men, six women and three children were killed.
According to Angrez Singh, five armed men, including Piara Singh, came by a three wheeler which stopped in a back lane of the house where the celebration of the wedding was on. The marriage party was getting ready to go to bed after the meals when the men started firing first on the outskirts of the house to kill the village cook. Then the gunmen scaled the house wall and opened another burst on about 50 men, women and children present inside. None of the participants knew what was happening until the victims started falling off. Some of them were chased and were killed right in the rooms.
Piara Singh was originally said to be a police informer. The militants headed by Jagir Singh attacked him but he escaped. The police later recruited him to the force and gave him arms and gunmen. The gunmen included Piara Singhs two sons who were designated “special police officers”.
Since the police involvement in the crime became public knowledge much too soon after the incident, the district police “arrested” all the five attackers and described the incident as the result of a “feud” between “two groups of militants”. Piara Singh never claimed himself to be a militant.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 29, 1991
