AMRITSAR: “We are being made scapegoats. After all, we were merely following our government’s orders.” That’s the refrain of several Punjab police officials following the Supreme Court directive to the CBI to investigate the cremation of 984 unclaimed bodies in the fight against militancy. But behind the veneer of self-righteous anger there is a sense of nervous fear. None of the police officers wanted to be named. The inquiry will open a can of worms, is a fear that’s evident to some of them generously rewarded subordinates for the very killings that are now being put under judicial scrutiny. Many admit that there were excesses but say that those weren’t ordinary times. “When we were fighting militancy, we thought we were fighting a national battle,” says a senior police officer. “Will they hold an inquiry into the deaths of civilians in an India Pakistan war?” Another officer says that the CBI inquiry will demoralize them. And that if the court wants to take any action, it should single out K.P.S. Gill since he was the one calling the shots. The two member CBI team is camping here. Senior police officers, including the SSP and the DIG, hold regular meetings on the subject. And the worst may be yet to come. The CBI’s listof984 unclaimed bodies isn’t complete, say human rights organizations. What about the 5,000 people still missing? How many of them were killed? Few in the police are ready to answer these questions, especially at a time when the Supreme Court’s watchful eye is trained at them. Paramjit Singh Sandhu, the DIG (border range), refused to comment saying that any statement would be contempt of court. But there are several families in the state wanting answers:

* Gurjit Kaur’s husband Hardey Singh was a government teacher who hasn’t been seen since the CRPF picked him up from their house in Amritsar’s Labh colony on July 7, 1992. “I read in a newspaper three days later that a Hardev Singh had been killed in an encounter at the Nanaksar Gurdwara,” she says. When Gurjit went to claim the body, the police refused to give it. But she sneaked into the crematorium. “There was no body,” she recalls.

* Sukhdev Singh’s family hasn’t given up. A cane development officer in a Faridkot sugar mill, Sukhdev, his family members say, was kidnapped by Kotwali Faridkot policemen in November 1992. His father died of shock. The family approached anyone who promised them help, including a Punjab Police IG who, they say, took Rs 1.5 lakh from them.

* Baljinder Singh, 16, missing for five years, was picked up by the Ferozepur police from his aunt’s house in Badbar (Sangrur district) in November 1991. The police party allegedly looted his house before settling it ablaze. The inspector leading it was identified, but with little consequence. “It was my elder son Tarlok Singh who had been involved in militant activities,” says Blinder’s mother Gurjit Kaur, a resident of Sodhi wala village. “Even he was shot dead at point blank range in the house along with his younger sister who tried to intervene.” Her husband too died of shock and today Gurjit lives on charity in the Golden Temple.

Article extracted from this publication >>  August 6, 1996