Case Studies Of Custodial Killings

In the course of my own travels in Punjab I received many reports of deaths in fake encounters from people who claimed that these had actually taken place in police custody. I was able to investigate some of the cases thoroughly. I discovered that they were indeed plain murders of detainees in custody committed by their custodians. In two cases I found that detainees had been done to death after prolonged interrogation under severe torture. One of these cases was from the Muktsar subdivision of Faridkot district; the second, from Guru Harsahay subdivision of Ferozepur district. The third case of extra-judicial execution had taken place in Mohali, in district Ropar near Chandigarh. In that case the police shot down an unarmed person while trying to abduct him from a public procession in front of hundreds of people. He probably died immediately from the injury. I say probably, because the police carried away his body in a jeep to some unknown place after shooting him and declared his death only the next day following a public protest at the incident. Here are the details of three cases:

Case I

Bhupinder Singh Sarang son of Ujagar Singh Sarang, aged fifteen, who lived in Mohalla Sarang Pura, near Khalsa Higher Secondary School, Muktsar, district Faridkot, was killed in a staged encounter in the night of 24 May 1987 in the outskirts of Middu Kheda village near Malout town.

Bhupinder was a student of class X at Khalsa High Secondary School in Muktsar. His father Ujagar Singh Sarang, a fifty year old man, is a professional balladeer known in Punjab as dhadi, who sings at Sikh festivals and religious functions organised by Gurudwaras. Bhupinder Singh had in April 1987 appeared for his school examination and was waiting for the results. He was a football enthusiast and went to play the game regularly with friends during his vacations.

In the evening of 20 May 1987, around 4 p.m., he returned home after a game of football. While he was changing his clothes, there was a knock on the door of his house. His mother Mrs. Amarjit Kaur opened the door. She saw policemen in uniform. They wanted to see her son. When Bhupinder came out he was promptly handcuffed and taken away. The policemen, however, assured Bhupinder's terrified mother that her son will come back home safe after some time. He did not.

In the evening of 21 May Ujagar Singh Sarang, the boy's father, went to see Avtar Singh Sidhu, a leader of the Youth Akali Dal, at his house in Muktsar and told him about the illegal arrest of his son. Avtar Singh Sidhu went to Sadar police station in Muktsar to inquire the next morning. No senior officer was present at the police station. Sidhu requested a head constable to permit him to meet Bhupinder Singh. He was first refused. But after some persuasion the constable took him to the cell in which Bhupinder Singh was locked up. Some other prisoners too were in the same cell. One of them was Gurbinder Singh, alias Binder, son of a wealthy farmer living in the village Uday Karan, whom Sidhu knew vaguely. Bhupinder Singh was moaning in pain and did not recognise Sidhu. He had been tortured severely the previous night. There were blood stains on his face and legs. Gurbinder Singh, who had witnessed his torture the previous night, told Sidhu that the Senior Superintendent of Police, Govind Ram, had personally shot him with his service revolver in the leg.

Later in the day Avtar Singh Sidhu and Bhai Shaminder Singh, a member of Parliament, tried to contact senior officials of the district to request them to have Bhupinder Singh either released immediately or produced before a magistrate on specific charges. But they could reach no senior official directly. Bhupinder's interrogation continued for the next two days. In the night of 24 May 1987 Bhupinder Singh was taken out of the lock-up while he was in a state of coma. Gurbinder Singh was still in the same cell. A Deputy Superintendent of Police, Rajinder Pal Singh, personally supervised his removal from the cell. Though Bhupinder Singh was delirious he was blindfolded. A team of policemen consisting of DSP Tand, Inspector Bajwa and some constables took him away with them.

The same night Bhupinder Singh Sarang was killed in an encounter staged in the outskirts of Middu Kheda village near Malout town, under the jurisdiction of Lambi police station, 40 kilometers from Muktsar. A first information report numbered 113, DDR No. 30, dated 24/5/1987 was filed for record at the police station Lambi. The report which bears the signature of Joginder Singh, Station House Officer of Lambi police station, made the following claim of encounter with armed "terrorist" in the course of which Bhupinder was shown to have been killed:

The Station House Officer Joginder Singh, along with the assistant SubInspector Jagir Singh and ten other policemen, was positioned on the road across Middu Kheda village in a jeep No. HYN 5967 and a motorcycle No. PBC 8402. At about 1 a.m., a Fiat car without a number plate came from the direction of Abohar, which is a small town on the border with Pakistan. The SHO waved the car to stop. But the driver of the car noticing the police patrol began to reverse it. The SHO and his companions, seeing the car move away, lunged forward challenging it again to stop. At this, three young men got down from the car and began to fire at them. The police returned fire in self-defence. One of the boys fell down after a police bullet hit him. The other two managed to run away in the cover of darkness... etc.

Ujagar Singh Sarang, Bhupinder's father, became suspicious when he read a news item in Jagbani, a vernacular daily, on 26 May, which reported that a "terrorist" has been killed in an armed encounter with the police near Middu Kheda village in the night of 24 May 1987. He went to Muktsar police station to inquire. He got no information there. When he asked the officials to let him see his son, they refused. He then went to the reported site of the encounter and from there to Lambi police station. He asked the police personnel present there to show him the body of the "terrorist" reported as killed in the encounter. He was told that the body had been sent away for postmortem to the civil hospital of Gidarvah, a small town nearby. Ujagar Singh went over to the hospital and managed to talk to the doctor in charge. He learnt that the body which had been there for post-mortem had already been returned to the police station Lambi. Ujagar Singh bribed a minor functionary at the hospital, who assisted the doctor performing autopsies, to give him a description of the body and to show him the clothes which were on it. He was shown the track suit which his son had been wearing on the day of his arrest. He returned to Muktsar the same evening.

On 26 May Ujagar Singh was taken into custody by the Muktsar police. He was detained for more then eight hours and released the same evening with the warning that if he propagated the case of his son, he too would meet the same fate. He was rearrested on 7 June, when a religious ceremony to commemorate the dead was to take place. Relatives and friends of the family were expected to take part and the police did not want him to be present on the occasion to talk to them about what had happened. He was released the next morning. Ujagar Singh was arrested a third time on 13 January 1988, when he was on his way to attend a religious function at which he was going to sing. At the police station he was once again warned not to talk about his deceased son in religious congregation. He was released on 14th evening at the intervention of Bhai Shaminder Singh, a Member of Parliament.

"I am waiting for them to come to kill me", Ujagar Singh told me, his face expressionless in resignation, at the end of an interview I had with him at his house in Muktsar on 2 May 1988. His wife, Amarjit Kaur, sat by him in stupified silence, with Bhupinder Singh's younger sister in her lap.

Gurinder Singh, whom I met at his house in Uday Karan village near Muktsar on 2 April 1988, testified to having witnessed the torture of Bhupinder Singh. He named the Senior Superintendent of Police, Govind Ram, Deputy Superintendent Rajinder Pal Tand and Inspector Bajwa as having been the officials to take Bhupinder Singh away from the lock up in the night of 24 May 1987.

He also told me that on 26 May 1987, when he was still in the same cell, the officers of the Sadiq police station in the neighbourhood of Muktsar, had brought two young men, Milkiat Singh, alias Mitta, and Kekkar Singh of village Bhagsinghwale, to Muktsar police station. He was asked whether he recognised the two. He said he did not. They too were taken out the same night by a group of police officers and were killed in a staged encounter near Kanawali village.

Case II

Gurbaksh Singh, aged sixteen, lived in Mothanwala village in Guru Harsahay sub-division of Ferozepur district, along with his widowed mother Mrs. Kartar Kaur and his elder brother Pratap Singh. He was killed in a stage managed encounter in the night of 15 Dec 87, along with Balwant Singh, who worked in the family farm, after twenty five days of illegal detention at Jalalabad police station. His sister Balbir Kaur died from torture inflicted on her during eight days of illegal detention, three months after her release on 20 December 1987.

Gurbaksh Singh's father had died some years ago. Thereafter, the boy dropped out of the school and started assisting his elder brother in managing their large family farm. Their elder sister Balbir Kaur was married to Mahal Singh, a farmer of Wadyon village, some twenty kilometers from Guru Harsahay town. Mahal Singh visited them often and helped them with the agricultural work. They worked hard and had a good income. The happy humdrum of their life was disturbed by an incident of murder that took place in a neighbouring village on 3 November 1987.

On this day, Mukhtiyar Singh, the head of the village council of Ghanga, five kilometers from Mothanwala, was killed by suspected Sikh militants. The police claimed to have recovered a shirt which was left behind on the scene of the crime by one of the assassins. The shirt had been stitched by a tailor Pappu, who had his shop in Guru Harsahay town. Police interrogated the tailor and on the basis of indications acquired from him went to Balwant Singh's house in Mothanwala village; the same Balwant Singh who worked in the farm of Pratap Singh and Gurbaksh Singh. He was not at home. His parents Mrs. Kartar Kaur and Inder Singh panicked . They would not tell where their son was. Both were taken away to the police station at Guru Harsahay.

From their interrogation the police came to known that Balwant Singh worked for Pratap Singh and Gurbaksh Singh. Police raided their house in the afternoon of 23 November. Both the brothers were at their farm. Some villagers tipped them off about the police raid of their house and advised them to stay away from the village for some time. Gurbaksh Singh went away to his sister's house in village Wadyon near Malout town. Pratap Singh went to Muktsar in Faridkot district to take shelter in the house of a prominent Akali Dal leader. Police took their mother Mrs. Kartar Kaur, who is fifty five, into custody. When she failed to return from the police station Guru Harsahay for several days, elders of the village council led by Mr. Darshan Singh went there and persuaded the officials to release her from the illegal custody. The village elders undertook to locate Pratap Singh and Gurbaksh Singh and to bring them along to surrender before the police. They kept their promise. A group of prominent citizens of the area led by Mr. Joginder Singh Jogi, a member of SGPC and the chairman of the Marketing Committee of Guru Harsahay; Mr. Pritam Singh Madan, Chairman, Marketing Committee of Jalalabad, Mr. Balwant Singh Bhandari and the head of the village council of Mothanwala, accompanied Gurbaksh Singh to the police station Jalalabad. Himmat Singh, the station house officer took him into his custody. This happened on 20 November 1987. On 22 November Balwant Singh was arrested.

Pratap Singh, who had taken shelter in the house of an Akali Dal leader in Muktsar, surrendered himself to the custody of Guru Harsahay police station on 28 November. He was accompanied to the police station by Sajjan Singh, a member of the Legislative Assembly. There had been no formal charge against either Pratap Singh or Gurbaksh Singh. They had no criminal background; only that Balwant Singh was suspected of involvement in the murder of Mukhatyar Singh. On 31 November 1987 Pratap Singh was produced in the court of H.R. Bhukal, a judicial magistrate of Ferozepur. The police claimed that Pratap Singh had been arrested after an armed encounter. They charged him with several offences under the Arms Act, Indian Penal Code, and the TDPA Act in a case registered at the Jalalabad police station under FIR No.461 of 1987. The court took cognizance of his arrest but ordered that an identification parade of the accused be held before 2 December 87, so that the main deponents of the case against him could be asked to identify him while he stood mixed in a motely crowd under observation of a magistrate. Probably because the parade would have given away the hoax the police filed an application in the court stating that they did not desire to hold the parade.

This development made Mrs. Kartar Kaur very anxious. The police had denied the fact that Pratap Singh had surrendered himself before the police in the company of a member of the Legislative Assembly. But the main cause of her worry was the non-production of Gurbaksh Singh before a court. Why were they holding him back? He had been for a week longer in police custody than Pratap Singh.

On 1 December she went to Ferozepur to meet the senior officers of the district to acquaint them with the illegal custody of her son. She could not meet them. Then she went to the post office and dispatched a telegraphic message No. A92 IR-96, time 16:50, addressed to the Deputy Inspector General of Ferozepur range expressing apprehension that her son Gurbaksh Singh in illegal custody since November 20, might be implicated in false cases.

Gurbaksh Singh was not released. Instead the police from Ferozepur picked up Mahal Singh, husband of Balbir Kaur, the sister of the two boys, on 9 Dec 87. Three days later Balbir Kaur too was taken away from her house in village Wadyon.

On 17 Dec 87 newspapers published a report quoting a police handout which declared death of two "terrorists", Balwant Singh and Gurbaksh Singh, in an armed encounter with the police, said to have taken place in the agricultural fields of Ladhuwale, a village under Jalalabad police station in the night of 15 December 1987.

On 20 December 1987 a mutilated Balbir Kaur came back to her house in a police jeep. For three months thereafter she remained under treatment and died in March 1988 without ever being able to leave her bed. Eight days of police custody had sealed her fate. Mahal Singh, her husband, was released some days before her death to enable him to attend her cremation. Their five year old daughter, Mohinder Kaur, now lives with her grandmother. Pratap Singh is still in jail. No man is left in the house to look after the women who survive the murrain of death infesting Punjab.

Case III

Amarjit Singh, aged eighteen, who lived in house No. 1180, Phase 1, Mohali, district Ropar, was killed on 4 November 1987 by policemen who were trying to abduct him from a procession organised by the Gurudwara in Mohali to commemorate the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, in front of other participants in the event. The afternoon news bulletin of all India Radio on 4 November 1987 carried an announcement that a terrorist, Amarjit Singh, was killed in Mohali while he was trying to escape from the police custody. The facts of the case are as following:

Amarjit Singh's father, Mohinder Gopal Singh, has been closely associated with the organisation of religious activities at the local Gurudwara. Amarjit Singh, himself made his living from driving a three wheel scooter as a taxi in Chandigrh. On 11 Feb. 1987 he had been arrested on the charge of possessing a stolen scooter. The case made out against him under First Information Report Number 581, dated 2 July 1987 was pending for trial in the court of Mrs. Rekha Rani, a Judicial Magistrate in Chandigarh. He was in Chandigarh jail as an undertrial in the abovementioned case until 27 October 1987. The court of Sessions at Chandigarh ordered his release on bail on 27 October 1987.

On 4 November the Gurudwara at Mohali organised a procession of Sikh devotees to celebrate the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak. Amarjit's father was one of the organizers of the event. At about 1.30 p.m. Amarjit Singh along with his brother, Harjit Singh and Manmohan Singh, a friend, was waiting for the procession to commence on the road outside the Gurudwara. A posse of policemen under the supervision of Assistant Sub-Inspector Madan Singh was in charge of the security. The procession took off from the Gurudwara soon after 1.30 p.m. Amarjit Singh along with his brother and his friend joined the march. Before long, a police jeep No.PUG 7338 was seen driving into the petrol pump, located on the road across the Sikh temple. Jagdish Singh, Station House Officer of Mohali police station, got down from the jeep and walked over to his subordinate Madan Singh who had been moving with the procession. They conferred in a low tone after which Madan Singh, with five constables following him, went up to Amarjit Singh and caught hold of him by the scruff of the neck. The policemen tried to pull him aside in the direction of the petrol pump where Jagdish Singh had parked his jeep. When Amarjit's brother and his friend, Manmohan Singh questioned the policemen as to why they were taking him away, the policemen pushed them back. Harjit Singh fell down. Harjit Singh says: "SHO Jagdish Singh ordered constable Baldev Singh to shoot Amarjit Singh". The constable Baldev Singh fired on him from the back. On being hit by the shot, Amarjit Singh collapsed immediately.

The report of the postmortem Number, PMR AG 9/67 carried out at the Civil Hospital of Ropar points out that a wound measuring 1 cm. x 3/4 cm. on the posterior aspect of the right side of the chest at the level of the nipples, causing injury to heart was the cause of the death. Two independent witnesses, one of them a Hindu, corroborate the account give by Harjit. Shiv Charan Sharma, who had come to Mohali from his village Tida in district Ropar to do shopping in the town, stopped at the Gurudwara on his way back home to watch the procession. He was one of the witnesses to the shooting of Amarjit Singh and the account given by him tallies with the one given by Harjit. Another independent witness who corroborates this version is Mr. Rattan Singh Bains, resident of House No.505, Phase 1, Mohali. He was filling fuel in his moped at the petrol pump across the Gurudwara when the incident occurred. Ratan Singh adds in his account of what he saw: "At the time of the occurrence of the incident no weapon was in the possession of the deceased..." Noise from the gunshot disturbed the procession. Many participants went towards Amarjit Singh who lay on the ground. Amarjit Singh's father Madan Gopal Singh, his brother Harjit Singh, Manmohan Singh and several organizers of the function moved in that direction. Immediately Assistant Sub-Inspector Madan Singh and other constables with him took positions around the body of Amarjit. Madan Singh warned the crowd that they would be shot at if they moved forward. In the meanwhile inspector Jagdish Singh brought his jeep close to Amarjit Singh's body and with the help of his subordinates had him put into the jeep. Manmohan Singh tried to come in the way of the jeep. He was lifted physically into the jeep by the constables and the jeep drove away.

Roughly four hundred participants in the event marched towards Mohali police station. Reaching there they found its doors locked up from inside. The crowd got restive and started raising slogans against the police officials. A subdivisional magistrate from Kharar reached the police station in his car after some time. Several other senior police and civil officials too arrived there. The district Commissioner of Ropar, Mr. J.R. Kundal, and the Senior Superintendent of Police talked to the group of people who were leading the congregation. They conceded that the shooting of Amarjit Singh was unjustified. They also promised to hold an inquiry into the episode and initiate criminal proceedings against those responsible for the excess.

In the meanwhile the news spread that Amarjit Singh had died. Police officials had earlier informed the crowd that the injured body of Amarjit Singh had been taken to the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences at Chandigarh for treatment. This was a lie. He had never been taken to the said Institute. Several persons in the crowd wanted to know where Manmohan Singh, the friend of Amarjit Singh who too had been carried away in the jeep, was. J..R. Kundal assured them that Manmohan Singh would come back very soon. He never came back. At 3.40 p.m. a First Information Report regarding the incident was lodged at Mohali Police Station. The Report No. 109, dated 4 November 1987, held the station house officer Jagdish Singh and his companions responsible for the shooting of Amarjit Singh and the abduction of Manmohan Singh. The SHO who was being accused of the crimes himself registered the report. He obviously took no action against himself.

The magisterial enquiry ordered, indicted the SHO of fabricating and manipulating the official records and of lying before the inquiring magistrate. The report concluded that "It is clear that SHO Jagdish Singh ordered to shoot Amarjit Singh whom he had believed to be a terrorist..."

Was Amarjit Singh a terrorist? The magisterial report said:

"No evidence has been led before me by the police to prove that Amarjit Singh was a terrorist. On the contrary the representation of the public proves that he was not a terrorist. The record of his school career also does in no way dub him as a terrorist. His involvement in a criminal case of theft does not indict him as a terrorist especially when having been bailed out by a Chandigarh court only a week before the incident, no action had been taken to apprehend him while he was easily available at home... From the above discussion it is clear that the deceased Amarjit Singh was not a terrorist."

The report recommended that the responsible officers should be tried under section 302 of IPC and the parents of the deceased should be duly compensated. These recommendations have remained unimplemented.