PATIALA: The entire population of Viran Majri village in this district of Punjab fled their houses and had not returned even after a week following a police swoop on them involving Dealing and torture on masse.
The episode shook Punjab with political and social leaders visiting the village to make on the spot inquiries. Several Congress (I) leaders including former state party chief Mohinder Singh Gill and Birdevinder Singh deplored the police action and asked chief minister Beant Singh to enquire into the matter and punish the guilty police officials.
According to village headman, Chuni Lal, a group of armed men entered into Subhash Chandcr’s house, raped his three women and looted Rs valuables worth Rs 60,000. The group later intruded into the house of an ex-serviceman Harbans Singh and deprived him of his licensed rifle. This incident occurred on December 24 and it alarmed the villagers who organized their own defense.
Consequently, when another group of eight armed men entered the village al night on January 6, the watchful villagers took them in custody and detained them in the room of the village gurdwara and one villager proceeded to Bassi Pathanan to inform the police. Chuni Lal said that the armed men had started firing on the villagers when they tried to arrest them. That convinced the villagers that the intruders had come with ulterior motives.
In the meanwhile the police came in strength to have the men freed from the custody of villagers. The police claimed that the detained men were policemen. But one of three victims of the rape said that she recognized one of the detained policemen as a rapist.
The villagers demanded registration of criminal cases against the detained men but the police said that the men were not the Same as had earlier intruded into the village. The police alleged that the villagers had beaten up their colleagues.
While the police asked the villagers whose number had swelled to 2500 to disperse after releasing the detained men, the villagers insisted on action against the guilty. This led to confrontation. The police fired indiscriminately. The police then beat up all the villagers to teach them a lesson for beating up and detaining policemen.
After the mass punishment, the police arrested several youths, took them to the police station and tortured them for several days. All other villagers including women, children and old persons, left the village to take shelter in fields or in neighboring villages. Mohinder Singh Gill said that the village had only two jat families. All other families were non jats, mostly Hindu Lubanas who had migrated from Kashmir now in Pakistan’s control and they regretted their fate. They wished they had not committed the mistake of coming from Pakistan in 1947, According to Minorities and Dalit front leader Balwant Singh Tohra, the villagers were in the custody of the police. He contacted the Punjab governor to seek the villagers* release. The governor assured them that all villagers had been released but Tohra said that the governor’s Statement was misleading. Tohra said that the police had beaten up villagers of the adjoining villagers also for visiting Viran Majrito has a look at the detained policemen.
The Punjab government has not reacted to the incident although the Punjabi media reported the matter prominently. However, the Indian media completely ignored the incident.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 15, 1993
