Poola Nihang

After the death of notorious Nihang leader Kahn Singh who was derogatively also referred to as Kahna, by the people, Ajit Singh Poola took over his gang, which consisted of notorious criminals who wore the robes of Nihangs. These were exactly the type of People the Government needed for the “Black Cats”. Amritsar Police Chief Azhar Alam contacted them and granted them liberal arms licenses. This group was charged with threatening the parents and family members of the militant leaders, spreading terror among the villagers, challenging and thus trivializing the militant leaders through the media. Taking over prominent rural Gurdwaras getting militants arrested and if possible killing them.

Even today, the heavily armed members of the gang can be seen strutting around in Amritsar and Gurdaspur district. Today, they control many important rural Gurdwaras; Police wanted them to do so because they wanted to use these institutions in their fight against the militants. They even provided him with a uniformed detail which was ostensibly meant to guard him but in fact became an accomplice in crime and helped in capturing the Gurdwaras.

Poola’s gang is directly or indirectly responsible for the assassination of a dozen or so militants, They were initially used by Azhar Alam but then Gobind Ram took them over.

During this time Poola took over the Gurdwara at Ghuman in Gurdaspur district, where he started his anti-social activities and terrorized the people in the area. The following is an

Example of his activities:

There is an important gurdwara called the Damdama Sahib near Hargobindpur. The local Sikhs asked the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabhandhak Committee to take over its management, but on being told of the organizations inability to do so, they unanimously decided to ask Bhagwant Singh of village Mari Buchian to manage the Gurdwara.

 He was inclined towards the Taksal.

On Jan 18, 1989, Poola along with 20-25 people and his police guard raided the house of Bhagwant Singh and said that he wanted to search the house. Bhagwant Singh was not home, his wife had taken the children and gone to visit her parents and only his brother Harpal Singh, his wife and their elderly parents were home. The whole house was searched after which they got after Harpal Singh, who was holding his 2 year old son.

They snatched the child and threw him on the ground, dragged Harpal Singh out and beat him mercilessly. When Harpal’s wife and mother tried to stop them, they were also kicked. The father Mukhtlar Singh was beaten up with rifle butts and accused of sheltering terrorists. They picked up all the belongings of the family and took it away.

When the family went to the police station to lodge a report, they were treated very badly.

How could the police file a complaint against a gang sponsored by their boss? Hardayal

Singh was very badly injured and had to be hospitalized in Amritsar.

Poola used to be on the Dias at the Lok Shakti functions held by the district officials. He would launch into an ever ology about SSP Gobind Ram on these functions.

ASI Dalbir

 Dalbir was the resident of village Pakho in Taran Taran. He studied at Kadhur Sahib and Sports College Jalandhar before joining the police. During this time he maintained a liaison with a number of prominent smugglers of the area and earned quite a bit. He was also involved in various crimes till he got caught in an attempt to murder conspiracy, and was thrown out in Feb 1984. He also developed some contacts with the militants.

He was quietly re-inducted in 198 — 6 since the authorities needed the services of such anti social elements, who knew the militants and could be used to eliminate them. Dalbir was well qualified to do so and was made a Black Cat. He served under Azhar Alam in Amritsar and under SSP Brar and Seetal Dass in Patiala. According to a statement by Ribeiro, its gang had 6 similar members.

He killed Paramjit Singh, an “A grade terrorist” of Taran Taran after being made a Black Cat. After this he was instrumental in getting Ranjit Singh and “B Class terrorist” Balwinder Singh Binda arrested. A few months later he got another absconding young man Gurbachan Singh of Mohali arrested.

At the beginning of 1988 Dalibr Singh shot dead two prominent militant leaders Surinder Singh Alias K.C. Sharma and Harvinder Singh Bunty while they were sitting at a bus stop in Chandigarh.

 Surinder Singh was wanted by the police in connection with the Gen Vaidya case. When Dalbir killed them a police party saw him, thought it was an ordinary murder and chased him. He flashed his identity card at them and ran into Ribeiro’s house. After this incident Dalbir became a favorite of Ribeiro’s. He was given a double promotion and made a ASI, given a Maruti and a Fiat car and a guard detail was assigned to him. His jurisdiction was increased to include the whole of Punjab and was exempted from daily attendance.

During this period his gang was involved in various criminal activities and he bought himself several residential properties in Chandigarh and Mohali. Just a few days before his death he had extorted gold worth 700,000 in exchange for people he had abducted in Jammu. Because of an altercation between him and Patiala SSP Setal Dass and SP Baldev Singh Brar, perhaps over the division of such ill-gotten gains, all three died.

Ribeiro expressed deep anguish about Dalbir dying like a dog. He felt as if had lost piece of his backbone. Speaking to India Today’s correspondent V. Mudhil he said that it will be difficult to fill the void left by Dibber’s death. If two officers had not died with him, our such activities would have remained secret. (India Today Hindi edition – Sept 15, 1988).

 Jaswinder Kala & Lakha Maruti

 The Times of India correspondent Dinesh Kumar describes his interview with this

Black Cat of Gobind Ram in the Aug 31 issue as follows:

“Anyone could have easily been mistaken…There was no difference, the same customary dress, moustaches curling upward, suspicious look and most important, an AK 4 7 rifle in the hand with Khalistan written on it, always ready to spew forth fire.

The place was Tanda village in Hargobindpur and the person is Jaswinder Singh Kala…who is the head of the Batala police chief Gobind Ram’s personal army, “Black Cats”.

Technically he is a constable of the Batala police but actually his job is to find the terrorists. If they cannot be easily apprehended, his job is then to eliminate them. Jaswinder is called Kala because of his being a Black Cat. He’s the leader of the 11 member secret police which has killed many top terrorists since its formation two years ago. Kala’s father Joginder Singh and his younger brother Lakhwinder Singh have been designated “special police officers” and are a part of his group.

Interestingly, some friends of Kala are also members of his unit even though they are not government servants. Even the police has illegally given them arms. The people of Kalas village Dana and the neighboring Manasa are tired of his harassing them for money. They say that what he gets from the police is not enough for him.

Jaswinder Kala murdered Major Singh of the Khalistan Liberation Forces who was considered a right hand man of Jugraj Singh alias Too fan Singh. Major Singh carried a reward of 50,000 Rs on his head. The next murder was that of Lakhwinder Singh Lakha of Malik pur and his associate Toti Jaswinder Kala had himself admitted to these and other murders to Dinesh Kumar the Times of India correspondent.

Lakhwinder Singh Lakha was killed at village Purana Shala, which is under the jurisdiction of Gurdaspur. But Kala brought his corpse to Dyal garh village near Batala. Toti had been arrested but was killed after being tortured for several days. The Gurdaspur police chief and Gobind Ram the Batala police chief had an altercation about Kala’s picking up the dead body and bringing it to Batala. Gurdaspur police chief wanted to get the 100,000 Rs award but this action of Kala’s and Gobind Ram’s claim of having killed

Lakhwinder Singh Lakha in an encounter denied him of the chance.

How Gobind Ram fabricated this story is also very interesting and was published in the Ajit dated May 1 6, 1989. “‘Lakha was killed today, in an encounter with the security forces at a drain near village Dyal garh in Batala district.

 According to the Batala police chief Gobind Ram, the police received the secret information that Lakha and his associate were hiding in village Dyal garh. At this Gobind Ram, SP Headquarters Anil Sharma and SP operations Harbhajan Singh led a joint police and BSF operation.

On seeing the police party the extremists started firing and the police party returned the fire. After some time one of the suspects escaped while the other was killed. The dead man was later identified as Lakhwinder Singh Lakha.

This is Jaswinder Kala’s contribution to Gobind Ram and the Government for which they had given him total freedom. Kala and his associates went to loot village Kaler Khurd which is under the jurisdiction of police station Dhaliwal, on Sept 10, 1989. They shut off the village power supply. After looting Kulwant Singh they went to rob an ex-army man Mahinder Singh’s house. Mahinder Singh’s daughter was to be married and the “Black Cats” claiming to be Khalistanis demanded her wedding jewelry saying they needed it to buy weapons. When Jaswant Kaur, the bride to be, resisted she was beaten up.

On hearing the commotion the village people gathered around and in order to scare them, Kala and his men opened fire. Their bullets hit and killed Ajmer Singh, Mahinder Singh’s 13 year old son, and Jaswinder Kala. The car used by Kala during the robbery belonged to a trader of Batala, in fact Kala’s younger brother Lakha had terrorized the traders. He had a penchant for Maruti cars and would take one away from a trader whenever he felt like it. He could always be found behind the wheel of a Maruti and every Maruti owner was scared of him, fearing their car to be the next target and knowing that they could not do anything as he was under Gobind Ram’s protection. He was called Lakha Marti

 Channa Dyalgarhia

 Yet another gang created by the Batala SSP Gobind Ram was that of Channa, who belonged to Dyal garh Buttar in Mehta Chowk police station. This group was responsible for the treacherous killing of two important militant leaders, Bhupinder Singh Bhinda (Kamoke) and Kashmir Singh Moulvi. They were associated with the Surjit Singh Penta of the Tiger Force. After Penta surrendered and committed suicide during operation “Black Thunder,” the command of the group shifted to Bhinda.

The first thing he did was to give up the policy of wanton violence. This caused him to become quite popular in the area. The authorities were very perturbed at this turn of events and ordered him to be killed. Police tried to encircle him and kill him a few times but he managed to fight his way out. By this time Channa was Gobind Ram’s Black Cat. He in turn had gained the confidence of Bhinda.

Channa found out that Bhinda was due to go to a school in Sudhar village in police station Beas, on Feb 13, 1989. He deployed people of his group at all the check points leading to Sudhar. Bhinda and his associate Maulvi were just parking their scooter at the school when Channa and another member of his gang burst upon the scene on a motor cycle and sprayed them both with bullets killing them in the spot.

They then went to get a tractor from the nearby villages so that they could take the corpses to Gobind Ram. However people refused to give them their tractors. They took a three wheeler and returned to the spot but found people gathered near the dead bodies.

They fired at them to disperse them and loaded the bodies into the three wheeler after which they proceeded towards Rajya.

On the way, they snatched a Maruti from a marriage party at Baniyal village, and transported the bodies to police station Hargobindpur. They informed Gobind Ram of their achievement. Hargobindpur was under Gobind Ram and he got the two bodies thrown in a field, had few bullets fired and released the news that Bhinda and his accomplice had been killed in an police encounter in Hargobindpur. This earned Channa the blessings of Gobind Ram. He was shot on Oct 25 by militants.

Pinki

 Pinki was the protege of Ludhiana’s SSP Sumed Saini. He lived with his aunt (a biochemistry clerk) at quarter number 99/12 in Punjab Agriculture University, Ludhiana. He was an absconder in the Talwara Bank robbery case. He was recruited as a Black Cat and thus avoided arrest in the earlier case. Now days he lives at CIA Staff quarters. He always carries a Mauser and has been made an Ad Hoc Inspector.

Sumed Saini assigned Pinki to the Punjab Agriculture University, where he was given the job of crushing the militant students. Till now he has abducted numerous militant student leaders both inside and outside the University campus. He and his group pounce on any militant leader they see and take him to the torture centers, where they are tortured to their hearts content. So much so that they even make them disappear. The mere mention of his name strikes terror in the women students. Whenever they see a car without license plates, the students try to hide. The Vice Chancellor made a tentative attempt to stop Pinky from entering the university but he was given such a reply that he doesn’t dare to do so again.

Under the leadership of the senior police officers of Ropar, Kahlon and Gurcharan Sadpur a big contingent of the cats has been formed, which have killed a number of militant leaders. Some “Black Cats” of Kapurthala SP Swaran Singh (Manjit Singh, Rupinder Singh) were apprehended by the militants and eliminated on the spot.

When a son says he wants to separate from home, it is not necessary that his head or feet be cut off so that he is unable to go out. What is needed is to understand why he feels his home to be less of a home to him now.

Prof. Dalip Kaur Tiwana