Dear Sir;
The police atrocities and killings of innocent Sikhs in Punjab have risen to a revolt. The tyranny and repression on 500 Sarpanchs and panches indulged in public meeting in Batala has been already released by a committee for information and initiative in Punjab.
Below is reproduced the latest in the series of mental and physical torture without any fault published in March 7, 1989 (p.3) issue of The Tribune Chandigarh.
“Brutality Ludhiana Police Style.” PATIALA, March 6 — The woeful tale of Mr. Sukwinder Singh, an employee of Punjab and Sind Bank, is the tale of at least 100 persons who have undergone mental and physical torture at the hands of the police without any fault of theirs.
Mr. Sukhwinder Singh was attending to bank work on February 10 when two persons in plain clothes approached him and said that two persons had come to see him outside the bank premises on The Mall. As soon as he came out of the bank, five persons pounced on him and bundled him into a Jeep. Actually they were CIA men from Ludhiana. He was taken to his residence where the police carried out a raid. Nothing incriminatory was found. Later, the police went to his ancestral house in Machhigan village and searched it again nothing incriminatory was found,
The CIA staff inquired of the whereabouts of his brotherinlaw, Mr. Mahesh Inder, but Mr. Sukhwinder Singh said he did not know. He was taken to the rest house, Harigarh where he was beaten up till he became unconscious. When he regained consciousness, a bandage was tied on his eyes and he was taken to the CIA premises in Ludhiana. Inspector Shiy Kumar allegedly beat him up. He was kicked on sensitive parts of his body. Four policemen spread out his legs and arms and the Inspector “tortured him” till he became unconsciousness. On regaining consciousness, the police told him to arrange a huge sum of money and threatened to kill him in a “fake encounter.”
Mr, Sukhwinder Singh’s colleagues approached the Patiala police authorities and threatened to go on an indefinite strike from February 13. He was then brought back on the intervention of the Patiala police and released in the evening on February 11.
Mr, Sukhwinder Singh was examined by Dr. O:P. Agarwal, Senior Lecturer in the Forensic Medicine Department of the local medical college, who found “multiple bluish brown contusions overlapping each other on both thighs with defuse swelling. “Both testicles and the scrotum were swollen.” Multiple bluish brown contusions were also found on several other parts of his body.
This shows why the police brutality is proving counterproductive and not only serves to alienate the Sikh masses but also failed to check so called extremism and bring about normalcy in the State.
Amarjit Singh Buttar Vernon CT
Article extracted from this publication >> March 31, 1989
