I, Gurcharan Singh Ghuman, Advocate, District Courts, Ludhiana, Punjab, do hereby solomnly affirm and declare as under:-

  1. That I am a Civil Liberty Activist and an advocate having about 20 years standing. I am an active member of the P.H.R.O. I alongwith others have investigated the Dehra Baba Nanak (Gurdaspur District, Punjab) alleged Border Security Force (B.S.F.) encounter where 10 Sikh youths were murdered in cold blood.
  2. That I am also an active member of the Punjab Sikh Lawyers Council (P.S.L.C.) and render free legal aid under Section 304 of the Criminal Procedure Code of India to the alleged terrorists. I have handled about 100 “Terrorist” cases, involving 200 Baptised Sikh youngmen, who because of the symbols of the religion, are readily identifiable as such.
  3. That I represented in the court Bhai Anokh Singh Babbar as he feared he would be killed in fake encounter in the same way Roshan Lal Bairagi and Manjit Singh “Bhindi” were done to death. Both, baptised Sikhs were shot dead while in police custody. They were taken out of jail to be produced in Amritsar Courts separately and killed after showing them to have escaped from police custody. Both were of about 25, Roshan Lal Bairagi was a convert from Hinduism to Sikhism.
  4. That in order to coerce and deter me from discharging my professional as well as civil liberty duties, a false criminal case was registered against me against which the Ludhiana District Bar Associations observed strike for 27 days and all the Bar Associations of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh observed four days strike to protest against the registration of false case against me and to arrest me.

A case under Section 212 & 216 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 3 & 4 of the Terrorist & Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1985, for harbouring and sheltering terrorists was registered against me. Four persons alleged to be harboured by me including Bhai Anokh Singh, were my clients. During police investigation I was warned against defending and pleading for such persons.

  1. That one Gurdev Singh Benipal, a civil liberty activist who had enquired in to the Anandpur Sahib Hola-Mohalla (District Roper Punjab) Festival of March, 1986, firing incident in which 14 unarmed and innocent Sikhs were killed by the Security Forces, was also charged alongwith me under the same offences only because of our civil liberties activities. Mr. Benipal was also lodged alongwith me in jail for more than a month. He was bailed out atter seven weeks. He is a whole time civil liberties activist.
  2. That the facts of my case are as under: –

“In the early hours of March 29, 1987 at about 2.30 a.m., a police party comprising Police Inspector Sardul Singh, of Criminal Investigating Agency (C.I.A.), Police Inspector Harbans Singh, Incharge of Police Station Sarabha Nagar, Police Inspector Balbir Singh, Incharge of Police Station Station Sadar, Ludhiana and Special Police Inspector Investigation (C.I.A), Police Inspector Gurmeet Singh, Incharge Police Station Division No.5, Civil Lines, Ludhiana, Sub Inspector Sant Kumar (C.I.A.) alongwith 15/ 16 armed police officials and constables raided my house No. 1488/2, Govind Nagar, Ludhiana and arrested me. They did not show to me any warrants of arrest or disclose any offence under which I Was arrested. I was taken away in a Jeep alongwith a Mini bus having no registration number plate or other identification marks. I was removed to C.I.A, Statf, Ludhiana where I was interrogated regarding charging of legal fees in terrorist cases and mentally tortured by directing the police officials to thrash me Physically. I was subjected to torture the whole day by Surjit Singh , Superintendent of Police (Detective) and two other police inspectors. They threatened to hand me over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (C.B.I.) for further interrogation; I was removed to police station, Civil Lines, Ludhiana at 8.30 a.m., on March 30. Where I was detained till 3.30 p.m. before producing me before a judge at Ludhiana. I alongwith Gurdey Singh Benipal was remanded in judicial lock-up and were detained in the Central Jail, Ludhiana from March 30 to April 7, 1987, when we were transferred to District Jail, Nabha, District Patiala where I remained upto May 2, 1987 till I was bailed out. I was not served with Proper food and newspapers nor was I allowed to meet my friends and relatives. Even my wife was not allowed to see me.”

  1. That the learned Designate Court held my detention illegal and wrongful.
  2. That when I was in Jail, my son Par Upkar Singh, 17, student and my brother-in-law, Raghvir Singh of Jalandhar District in Punjab who had come to see his sister, my wife, were arrested on April 30 on a false charge just to harass my family.
  3. That even prosecution witnesses are harassed enforcing agencies in India prosecution witness No and tortured by the law One typical instance is of the undisclosed 30 in case State Vs. Kamaljit Singh and others

Hijacking case being tried at Ajmer in (Rajisthan). Here is cross examination of this witness by the defence counsel Jaspal Singh Sodhi, Advocate, Ajmer –

“When police picked me up, I was freed after 9/10 days. I know when I was taken to Mohali, wherefrom I was taken by the police to an unknown place and I was blind-folded. Whenever I was interrogated I was kept blind-folded. The statements got signed by me and these were written with a pen. When they got my signatures, the cloth from my eyes was removed. When I was being interrogated I did not hear the sound of type writing. Firstly, I was tied upside down, later they removed my clothing and put ice on my body. Then they gave me electric shocks. Yesterday night also I was tortured upto 11 p.m. At night I was kept in a house where the public Prosecutor Saxena alongwith 2/3 persons were also present. Besides me, another witness was also tortured. At night we were kept in same house where we were interrogated. During interrogation I was tortured and asked to give statement according to the prosecution story. I did not reveal anything voluntarily before the police.”

  1. That my client Harbans Kaur, Staff Nurse, E.S.I. Hospital, Ludhiana represented to the Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and the District Magistrate demanding action against the Raikot Station House Officer, Sant Kumar, Sub Inspector Police who took my client’s son, Manikaran Singh aged 2 years, her nephew, Gagandeep Singh aged three and her sister Jasbir Kaur and her divorced husband Mr. Nirmal Singh into illegal police custody. They were tortured, abused and maltreated.
  2. That I also represented one Tanvir Singh son of Gurcharan Singh, resident of Nur Mahal District Jalandhar, in the Ludhiana Courts who was prosecuted under Section 25-54-59 of the Arms Act for allegedly recovering two revolvers from his possession. Interestingly both hands of Tanvir Singh were chopped off and he in any case cannot use any fire- arm. The State machinery is so repressive that even baptised Sikh youngman with chopped off hands was not spared.
  3. That I represented before the District Magistrate at Ludhiana the minor jail inmates who were arrested from the Golden Temple premises on June 1984 during the Operation Blue Star. Out of 37 children, nine were foreigners belonging to Bangladesh and 14 were between two and 14 years in age. They had gone to the Golden Temple alongwith their parents as pilgrims. They were categorized by the police as terrorists belonging to category A.B.C. It was only on the intervention of the Supreme Court that they were released.
  4. That the dead bodies of the Sikh youngmen killed in fake encounters are not handed over to their relatives for cremation because of the fear that the parents of the deceased may get the dead bodies medically examined privately. The State machinery is instructed not to hand over dead bodies to the relatives of the deceased, This happened in the case of Jatinder Singh son of Harnek Singh of Sohian village in Ludhiana District.
  5. That under these circumstances and in the face of the oppressive and dreaded laws the above said defendants will not get fair trial in India and I am of the considered opinion that if said defendants are extradited to India they are likely to meet the fate of Roshan Lal Bairagi, Manjit Singh Bhindi, Bhai Anokh Singh and Mathura Singh (also involved in General A.S.Vaidya’s murder case) who were either killed in fake encounters after showing them to have escaped from jail or police custody.

Ludhiana

January 13, 1988.