Tarlochan Singh Sidhu was now convinced that his son had been killed. He, however was wrong. Some days later he met Satnam Singh of Mohali who had also been arrested by the Patiala police on 22 July 1989 from Phase 5 of Mohali and was subsequently released. Satnam Singh told him that he had seen Kulwinder Singh at the residence of Surjit Singh Grewal, Inspector CIA staff, Patiala on the night of 24 July. Another person Sher Singh, arrested by the Patiala police on 21 July from Madan Pur Chowk, Mohali and subsequently released, also confirmed that Kulwinder Singh was in the custody of Surjit Singh Grewal, and that he had seen him with his own eyes being interrogated by Inspector Surjit Singh Grewal.
On 22 August 1989 Tarlochan Singh Sidhu submitted petitions to the President of India, the home Minister of India, the governor of Punjab and the Home Secretary, Punjab, imploring them to institute judicial inquiry into the alleged escape of Kulwinder Singh. But he received No response from them. On 22 September 1989 Tarlochan Singh filed a Criminal Writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India for the issuance of Writ in the nature of Habeas Corpus for the production of Kulwinder Singh. The petition further sought appointment of an impartial investigation in case the respondents denied his custody.
The petition was admitted. The respondents stuck to their theory of Kulwinder Singh’s escape. The High Court has not yet ordered an inquiry. The petition is pending, the next date of hearing being 27 February 1990.
CASE 5
Baldey Singh, 30 son of Harbhajan Singh, was a mason who lived in village Shekchak, tehsil Taran, of district Amritsar. On 25 February 1988, around 3 pm when he was going on a cycle rickshaw to village Bhoonya with Harjab Singh alias Ladi, a friend of his from Chakiyari village in Jalandhar, CRPF men in jeeps overtook them near a mango grove, belonging to a retired army officer, half a kilometer from Fateh bad and took them into custody.
Baldev Singh and his friend were going to Bhoonya paternal village of his wife, Gurmeet Kaur, to bring her back to his own house in Shekchak. A friend of their families. Bachittar Singh of Bhoonya village was on his way to Fatahabad on his scooter to bring back his children from their school. Seeing Baldev Singh in a rickshaw, he stopped to talk to him. While they were still talking, a CRPF jeep coming from the side of Fatehabad crossed them. Soon another CRPF jeep coming from the same direction crossed them and stopped by the road twenty meters ahead of them.
Insensitive to the danger looming over them, Baldev Singh and Harjab Singh got into the rickshaw and Bachittar Singh started his scooter to leave. Bachittar Singh had already noticed that several armed men from the vehicle were on the road, and as he looked back he saw both Baldev Singh and Harjab Singh running after them. Feeling both concerned and scared he drove to the other side of the grove where he again saw both of them being chased by the CRPF men. Not wanting to get involved Bachittar Singh went on to his children’s school. On his way back he saw the CRPF jeeps returning. He stopped to talk to the rickshaw puller who was returning without his passengers. The rickshaw puller told him that the CRPF men had arrested both his passengers; Bachittar Singh also talked to a labourer in the mango grove who not only confirmed their arrest but also informed him that they had been severely beaten after their apprehension. Bachittar Singh then went to Gurmeet Kaur’s parent’s house and told her what he had seen.
The next morning Gurmeet Kaur and her mother went to Shekh chak and informed Baldev Singh’s parents who immediately collected some village elders among them were Kartar Singh, Jaswinder Singh, Surinder Singh and went to the camp of the 29th Battalion of the CRPF at Fatehabad. The officers of the CRPF present in the camp refused to say anything to them about the case. Baldev Singh’s father Harbhajan Singh immediately sent telegraphic petitions to the Director General of Punjab police stating the facts about the abduction and requesting him to have them produced before a court. Baldev Singh’s younger brother, Sukhjinder Singh, also a mason, went to the Fatehgarh police station and spoke to an acquaintance Tralochan Singh Walia, Assistance Sub Inspector, and requested him to help. Tralochan Singh told him that Baldev Singh was alive and safe in the custody of the CRPF and he would after returning from a marriage ceremony he was going to attend in Kapurhala try to get him released. When Sukhjinder Singh went to him again after four days, the Assistant Sub Inspector pleaded his inability to help. Asked where he was pleading helplessness because his brother had been killed, the Assistant Sub Inspector refused to divulge any information and suggested that Sukhjinder might inquire from the Bairowal police station. One officer at the Bairowal police station, whom Sukhjinder was able to meet, told him that an unidentified person had been killed in an armed encounter with the police on the canal bridge near Bairowal in the night of 28 February. Bachittar Singh, of Bhoonya village then met Gurinder Singh an Assistant Sub Inspector refused to divulge any information and suggested that Sukhjinder was able to meet, told him that an unidentified person had been killed in an armed encounter with the police on the canal bridge near Bairowal on the night of 28 February. Bachittar Singh, of Bhoonya village, then met Gurinder Singh, an Assistant Sub Inspector at Khadoor Sahib police station and requested him to verify whether Baldev Singh had been killed or was alive. Gurinder Singh told him that he had been killed during interrogation.
Bachittar Singh, together with Kartar Singh of Shek Chak village, then went to the court of Dalip Singh, a magistrate in Tarn Taran to whom the Bairowal police had submitted a report on the encounter that had supposedly taken place in the night of 28 February. The report claimed that an unidentified person had been killed in the encounter. The photograph attached to the report, however, was not that of Baldev Singh. Baldev Singh’s parents were nevertheless convinced that their son had been killed and commemorated his death through a religious service which they organized on 9 March 1988. The event was announced in the daily Ajit newspaper of 8 March 1988. Indications that Baldev Singh might be alive started reaching his parents after the ceremony.
Jagir Singh, Baldev’s eldest brother, who bore close resemblance to him, and was also a mason, meta worker from village Kotli, Tehsil Khadur Sahib who claimed that he had spent fifteen days together with Baldev Singh in Bairowal police station under interrogation. Twenty days after Baldev Singh’s abduction a large team of the CRPF personnel led by Gorakhnanth Tiwadiya came to the house in Shek Chak when Harbans Kaur, Baldev’s mother and Balwinder Singh, his youngest brother were in the house and wanted to take Balwinder Singh along with them. They let him go when his mother raised pandemonium. A large number of angry villagers gathered outside the house. Inspector Tiwadiya admitted to Harbans Kaur before leaving that Baldev was in his custody.
Baldev’s wife, Gurmeet Kaur, together with their three children Sukhjinder Singh, 3, Simarjit Kaur, 6; Paramjit Kaur 7; his old parents and his brothers hope that Baldev Singh is alive and would return home. However, two years of unrequited hope has been to them a mortifying suspense which they want to cease.
CASE 6.
Baljinder Singh, alias Raju, originally from Ganganagar in Rajasthan has for many years been living in Amnitsar. His parents still live in Ganganagar. Baljinder Singh was known to have been an active member of the All India Sikh Students Federation and maintained little contact with his family. On 8 Juné 1989 Baljinder Singh together with a friend, Gurjit Singh, alias Grover, son of Pritam Singh, resident of Kot Mit Singh, Taran Taran Road, Amritsar, went to Jalandhar in his car No DBD3711. He wanted to sell his car so he went to a dealer in the city center from whom he had bought it some time back. The dealer found him a customer a college teacher who was willing to pay Rs 70,000. Raju collected an advance payment of Rs 5,000. The dealer asked him to come back the next day to sign the sale deed and to collect the rest of the money.
They went back to the dealer on 9 February 1989 at 2 pm. Another person not seen by them earlier was sitting in the shop. They thought the man was a business partner. The dealer, one Mr. Sharma asked them to come along with him in his car to collect the payment and to sign the papers. The other man also got in to the car with them. The dealer got down outside the college near the Football Chauk telling them that while he would ask the customer to get the payment ready they should go and collect the prescribed sale forms and the stamps from the local court. The other man in the car, who they had presumed to have been a business partner of the car dealer, drove them to a building adjacent to the court.
Before they realized it they were inside the compound of the Central Investigation Agency’s office, the CIA of Punjab. A dozen policemen armed with light machine guns and rifles surrounded them and forced them to go inside the building. Once inside the building Baljinder Singh and Gurjit Singh were handcuffed and separated. A person under a black burka (veil) identified them.
Gurjit Singh had earlier taken note of a girl who was sitting on a chair in a room he had gone through. The person, who identified Baljinder Singh, perhaps under duress, was Lakh winder Kaur, a student of Amritsar acquainted with Raju who was required to report regularly to a police station in Jalandhar because of her suspected connection with the All India Sikh Students Federation. The next day, Lakhwinder Kaur reached Gadli village, PO Bhagwan, Tehsil Taran Taran, to visit Gurdayal Singh, a relative of Baljinder Singh. There she also met Balwinder Kaur, his cousin. She told them that Baljinder was in custody of the Jalanhar police and advised them to immediately move a writ of habeas corpus for his production in the high court of Punjab and Haryana. The petition was hurriedly filed by was dismissed by the court.
The Jalandhar police took Baljinder Singh in the night to the house of Gurjit Singh in Amnitsar where the latter’s mother Daljit Kaur, and other members of the family identified him as a person acquainted with Gunjit who had for some time been staying in their house. The police went away with Baljinder Singh after searching the house. He was taken back to Jalandhar for interrogation.
For the next fifteen days both Baljinder Singh and Gurjit Singh were interrogated under torture jointly by the officials of the CRPF and the CIA, Jalandhar. They were brought together to confront each other five times in the course of the interrogation. On 25 June 1989. Gurjit Singh was produced before the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Jaladhar in a case that was registered against him under the Arms Act and the TDPA. He was remanded to judicial custody by the magistrate and remained in illegal custody.
On 16 January 1990 the case against Gurjit Singh was withdrawn by the prosecution and he was released by the court of S.S. Tiwana, additional judge of the designated court which had been seized of his case. Baljinder Singh must be still in illegal custody unless he has been eliminated in a faked encounter.
CASE 7
On 17 January 88 around 10 am two white cars without number plates drove into the taxi stand in Sector 22 near Aroma Hotel in Chandigarh. Some men in civil clothes but armed with fire arms got out of the cars. They were looking for Balwinder Singh, who drove a taxi owned by Sohan Singh. They found Balwinder Singh and forced him to get into one of the cars and drove away with him to some unknown destination. It was a Sunday
Article extracted from this publication >> June 15, 1990
