LUDHIANA: Bhai Sukhdev Singh Babbar, a senior leader of the Babbar Khalsa International, was arrested and done to death on a clue provided to the police by former Babbar Khalsa activist Gurdip Singh Sibia now in the custody of the police, according to the International Human Rights Organization.

In a report prepared by the  I. H.R .O., Bhai Sukhdev Singh Babbar was living at 3, Urban Estate, Patiala, under the cover name of contractor Jasmir Singh Sandhu. A police party from Ludhiana headed by Superintendent Police (Operations) Balwant Singh Gill raided Bhai Sukhdev Singhs house on the night of August7-8 on a clue received from Chandigarh.

The police party rang the call bell in a particular manner which was in terms of a highly secret code known only to certain top militants. This information was presumably given by Gurdip Singh Sibia who had been in the custody of the police since the last week of May. Later he dramatically appeared in Chandigarh and surrendered to chief minister Beant Singh.

When Bhai Sukhdev Singh opened the door the police roughed him up a little and found no difficulty in apprehending him. He was taken to Ludhiana along with his Maruti car. There he was kept in the C.I.A. staff head office and at the Focal Point police station and was tortured and interrogated. When Bhai Sukhdev Singh became half-dead as a result of torture he was taken in his own Maruti car to the Sahnewal-Deklon road at a water shoot and was shot dead. His dead body was taken out of the car and was thrown near by.

The police invented the encounter story to pat the backs of S.S.P. Chatopadhaya, S.P. (D) Balwant Singh Gill, S.P(O) P.P. Sabharwal, D.S.P. Shiv Kumar, D.S.P. Narinderpal Singh and Inspector Gurjit Singh and some other officials.

In the F.I.R. No 63 of 9/8/92 the police said that it had put up a barrier at a bridge of a water shoot near Dharaur. At 5 a.m. two Sikh youths came by a Maruti car from Dehlon side. When the police signaled them to halt, they got out of the car and took up positions along the shoot and opened fire, The police returned the fire, The encounter continued for more than one hour involving in all 347 rounds. While Sukhdev Singh was killed, his associate

The I.H.R.O. dubbed the police version as fabrication. The people of Dharaur said that they heard 78 gunshots and the firing ended after a few minutes. The car was shown to certain journalists by the police. The back seat of the car had a pugree and there were blood stains on the seat. The police evidently forgot about its other version that Bhai Sukhdev Singh had got out of the car and had taken appositions along the water shoot and that there could be no question of a pugree and blood stains being on the back seat of the car. The  I.H.R.0.  report was prepared by Mohinder Singh Grewal, Gurbhajan Singh Gill, Bhupinder Singh Somal and Harchand Singh Gill, all activities of I.H.R.O.

Separately, Bibi Jawahar Kaur now in police custody had told a journalist at Patiala a few days ago that Bhai Sukhdev Singh had been arrested by the police at about midnight on August 7-8.

Article extracted from this publication >> September 11, 1992