By: Sarjit Singh Ph.D., Clarion, and PA

“The Minister…says that if the murder has been committed by his henchmen, the case ha either not to be registered at all or not to be investigated, or investigated improperly or the

Postmortem report has to be cooked or other steps taken to ensure that the guilty party gets away scot free”, (Mr. B.K. Nehru Jan 12, 1992).

Since Mr, Beant Singh was installed Chief Minister in Punjab in 1992, the number of police murders called “encounters” shot up dramatically, Why? Part of the answer lies in the account of a slaughter of four men published in India Today of September 1983 when the Congress (I) party was in power, and Beant Singh was a minister.

On the night of 1314th August 1983, four young Sikh men, Gurjeet Singh, Raj Anmol Singh, Dalip Singh and Nirmal Singh were shot dead by a police party from Payal led by Jagjit Singh Bedi near Rara Sahib in Ludhiana District. Police said the dead were extremists and bank robbers and they died in an encounter. (An encounter in BBC’s correspondent Mark Tully words is euphemism for murder by police). The bodies were held up by police for 36 hours in hot and humid weather and had become swollen and discolored. The postmortem carried out by six doctors at Ludhiana revealed the dead were brutally tortured before being shot. None including the Ludhiana police chief D.R. Bhatti believed the police story that the victim were bank robbers. All of them were affluent business people. According to the witnesses, all the bullets came from one side, one villager Makhan Singh said that it was a revenge killing in which the local police acted as hired assassins. Dalip Singh, one of the four murdered, was the primary target. He had killed a Congress (I) leader, Harchand Singh, and now was on parole. The other three were his constant companions. In an environment where the will of the Minister or the MLA replaces law, the wheels of justice could only be moved by political means. The aggrieved women protested the murder before the district magistrate whose response remained limited to symbolic gesture, He ordered Mr. Bedi withdrawn to the police lines, The villagers suspecting Mr. Beant Singh, the Public Works Minister of Punjab of the Congress(I) Party to be the mastermind behind this killing petitioned the prime minister. “Mrs.Gandhi had met the deputation from Payal and was said to have been concerned by the evidence that was placed before her. She is said to have ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the shooting. The probe is said to have indicated that there might be some substance that Beant Singh had masterminded the killing.”

On hearing this …””Home Secretary A.S Pooni, Inspector General of Police Pritam Singh Bhinder and H.S. Randhawa_ k detailed discussions over a period of three days. Bhinder personally went to Ludhiana for three days to check certain facts. Finally the deputy superintendent of police (CID) from Chandigarh, Harcharan Singh filed’ the complaint (called FIR) in Payal police station. And Superintendent R.P Joshi has (also) been camping in Payal hearing evidence”.

“The FIR claimed that Beant Singh may have been involved in the shooting of four: young Sikhs by the police in Rara Sahib last. Month… Also named in the FIR were Superintendent of Police (City) Ludhiana, Sukhdyal Bhuller, Payal police station House Officer, Jagjit Singh Bedi and others who allegedly tortured four young rich Sikh farmers and later shot them in what was” made to look like a police encounter”. The murder charge thereafter got transformed into a political row between the Chief Minister Darbara Singh (who, as admitted to the BBC”s correspondent Mark Tully, had also ordered killing of the Sikh “terrorists” as a matter of un written policy) and the Public Works Minister Beant Singh, When its ramifications added further tensions among the warring factions of the Congress (I) party, Mrs. Gandhi, and her cabinet ministers rushed in and directed the feuding parties to cool off. The Chief Minister, conveniently basing his opinion on Superintendent R.P. Joshi’s investigation, found Mr. Beant Singh “innocent”. Six weeks later, the State rule was taken over by the Central government and the ministry dissolved. Back.in power for the first time since 1983, Mr. Beant Singh did not contest his seat from his hometown constituency. Using a “first past the post” strategy he” was elected in a farcical election with 17 per” cent of the electorate vote from Jullundur Can’t, 50 miles west, dominated by Hindu urban population.

Should the Akali party of Sikhs come to power, could he come to trial? Obviously he would like to hang on to his position, obliging, in any way he can, his “masters” in New Delhi who have been trying to destroy Sikhs for about a decade. He is being more “loyal than the king”. In any case, the voters in his traditional hometown are well aware of his “record”.

Article extracted from this publication >>  August 13, 1993