CHAM KAUR SAHIB (ROPAR): Month after month, as her pregnancy advanced following her militant husband’s nocturnal visit in August last year, Police torture on Rajinder Kaur (30) of Pipal Majra village in Ropar district increased proportionately.
Mother of four daughters, Rajinder Kaur’s husband Gurmukh Singh went underground two years ago and joined militants. Since then, police harassment has become a regular feature of her life. In the seventh month of her pregnancy in April last year, she was allegedly kept in illegal custody by the police and tortured for a number of days.
Kaur is so fed up with the police raids that she wants it to be conveyed to Gurmukh that either he should surrender to the police or come and shoot the entire family, including the newly born baby girl.” With less than three acres of agricultural land and one buffalo, Rajinder Kaur has to feed the whole family, including her blind parents in law.
Giving account of her torture, she said a police party from Chamkaur Sahib came around 1:30 a.m. on Oct.29, bundled her into a vehicle and took her to the banks of Sirhind Canal near Dhalaura village. “I was kicked and slapped mercilessly by the policemen who threatened to throw me into the Canal if I did not tell them the Whereabouts of Gurmukh,” she said.
She was tied up in a gunny bag and dipped into canal water repeatedly. “The water was so chilly that L almost experienced death,” sobbed Kaur, But the policemen changed their mind and brought her to the police station.
Jagat Singh, her blind father in law had also been taken into police custody along with her brother-in-law Jeet Singh. But Chamkaur Sahib Police refuses to reveal their place of detention. “We have not detained them. Neither did we torture Rajinder Kaur,” says the sub inspector at the police station who refuses to disclose his identity. He passes the buck by saying “police from some other district must have done it without our knowledge. During her illegal confinement for over two weeks, Kulwinder (12), her eldest daughter lost her balance of mind due to mental shock, on many nights and after days of special care did she come to her normal self,” says Kaur. The family is under heavy debt and none of the relatives comes to their help. Even Charno of the same village who used to come to help the family now avoids them after she was also kept in police custody for a number of days. Interestingly, the family is yet to get sum of Rs.10, 000 announced last year by the SSP. Sanjiv Gupta under Operation Healing Touch. Ata later stage, he had even told newsmen that all the five families identified for financial assistance had been paid.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 19, 1993
