Faked Encounters: Magisterial Enquiries

"FAKED ENCOUNTER" is an elastic term which covers deaths caused by security forces in a variety of circumstances and reactions not involving a direct clash with the person killed as claimed by officials. The following are some examples:

Family of Niranjan Singh

On 2 June 1987 a patrol of the Border Security Force (BSF) had an alleged encounter with armed militants in village Veroke under the Dera Baba Nanak subdivision of Gurdaspur district. Two members of a family, Mrs. Jasbir Kaur, a pregnant woman, and her husband, Harminder Singh, were killed and Jasbir Kaur's mother, Niranjan Kaur, was injured. One constable of the BSF, Bishamber Dass, was also killed. According to the version of the incident by the BSF, the family whose members were killed, was harbouring "terrorists.". When the BSF men went to search the house, the militants hiding there engaged them in a shootout. The house belonged to Niranjan Singh, a retired soldier of the Sikh regiment who escaped on seeing the BSF men.

The version of the incident was contested by the villagers. They claimed that the family of Niranjan Singh had nothing to do with the militants and had never harboured them. In view of the unrest created by this episode in the village, the government ordered a magisterial inquiry which was conducted by a subdivisional magistrate of Gurdaspur district. The inquiry report indicted the BSF of killing innocent persons in a sanguinary reaction without justification. According to the report of the magisterial inquiry, the BSF battalion based in Dera Baba Nanak sector of Gurdaspur district had information that the militants were hiding in the house of Nimma in Thitherke village. However, the BSF patrol which was sent out to raid mixed up the information and went to the house of Niranjan Singh in the village Veroke. The house was surrounded and the family was woken up. The BSF men started interrogating them about the "hidden terrorists." While the interrogation was in progress, the rifle in the hands of one of the constables outside the house went off, perhaps accidentally. Immediately, there was a volley of return fire. BSF personnel inside the house assumed that militants hiding somewhere in the vicinity were firing at them. The assumption was wrong. A company of Railway Protection Force was camping at a distance of three hundred yards from the house under raid. Hearing the gun shot which came in their direction, personnel of the Railway Protection Force fired back. Two BSF men were hit and the constable Bishamber Das died. Furious at the death of one of their numbers, the BSF men turned their guns on the family of Niranjan Singh. Niranjan Singh himself escaped but witnessed the cold blooded murder of his son, Harminder Singh, and his pregnant daughter-in-law, Jasbir Kaur, and also the injuring of Niranjan Kaur, his daughter-in-law's mother.

The report of the magisterial inqiry recommended that a case of murder under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) be registered against the responsible BSF personnel. The district authorities granted monetary compensation of Rs. 2000 in addition to an ex-gratia grant of Rs. 20,000 for each person killed to the surviving members of the family. The BSF battalion which was based in Dera Baba Nanak sector was transferred out to another locality. The recommendation to launch prosecution against the personnel responsible for the murders was ignored.

Sardool Singh

Another magisterial inquiry, conducted by S.P. Mahajan, a subdivisional magistrate of Amritsar district, into the reported death of one Sardool Singh in an armed encounter with the police, indicted the authorities of concocting a false story after killing an innocent man and forging evidence to support the lie. According to the version of the incident given by the police officials of Amritsar, Sardool Singh was moving on a scooter numbered PUO 6254 along with another man on the pillion on 24 August 1987. When the police stopped them for a routine check at a barrier on the Mall Road, the man on the pillion started firing at them from a .32 calibre pistol. The police returned the fire. Sardool Singh was hit by a bullet and collapsed. The man on the pillion managed to run away.

The inquiry conducted by SDM, S.P. Mahajan, established altogether different facts.

Sardool Singh was going alone on his scooter when the policemen at the checkpost on the Mall Road waved him to stop. But before he could stop, he lost control of his scooter hitting a woman pedestrian. The woman fall down on the road and became unconscious. Thinking that he had killed her and would have to face arrest and prosecution, Sardool Singh who was a small businessman of Amritsar drove away. A police jeep chased him and made him stop near a hospital. A policeman dragged him down from his scooter and started beating him with his rifle butt. The rifle with which he was hitting Sardool Singh went off accidently and the bullet hit Sukhdev Singh, another police constable, who died on the spot. In anger and frustration over the mishaps, another policeman shot down Sardool Singh.

In his thirteen page report, the subdivisional magistrate concluded that Sardool Singh was neither a "terrorist" nor had he anything to do with Sikh militancy. The report held as false the claims made by the police officials that they had recovered a .32 calibre country made pistol from Sardool Singh and that a companion of the killed "terrorist" had managed to escape. No one was riding with him on the scooter, the inquiry concluded. The bullet which killed police constable Sukhdev Singh, the report said, was not from a .32 calibre pistol but from a police rifle.

SDM Mahajan recommended that the widow of Sardool Singh, Mrs. Kulwant Kaur, be compensated monetarily with an ex-gratia payment of Rs. 20,000 and that a member of the family be given a government job to enable the family to survive. S.P. Mahajan, the courageous magistrate, soon after submitting this report, was transferred out of Amritsar.

Parminder Singh

Yet another magisterial inquiry into the reported death of one Parminder Singh of Gurdaspur district in an armed encounter with the Border Security Force in the night of 31 August 1987, indicted the Force of killing an innocent person in over-reaction and then forging evidence to cover up the murder. According to the official version of the incident, a BSF patrol saw a group of five or six young Sikhs standing on the road near Geeta Bhavan in Gurdaspur around 10.30 p.m. on 31 August 1987. On seeing the BSF patrol approaching them, the boys retreated behind a bush by the road and started firing at them. The BSF men returned the fire. When the firing ceased, the BSF men went over to the bush behind which the boys had taken cover and found a person lying dead with a pistol in his hands. Others had escaped.

The district Magistrate ordered an inquiry into the incident when a large number of residents of the area where Parminder Singh had been killed met him in a deputation and expressed their anguish at what they called a false encounter. Kulwant Singh, a subdivisional magistrate of Batala, was deputed to conduct the inquiry. The report of the inquiry was submitted in October 1987. The report came out with the following findings:

Parminder Singh, the deceased, who lived in Secretary Mohalla of Gurdaspur had gone to visit a friend near Geeta Bhavan, who was ironically enough a Hindu. The incident occurred when he was taking leave of his friend to return to his house. On seeing the patrol jeep of the 54th Battalion of the BSF, the boys, who had been standing on the road chatting, started to move away. The BSF men challenged them to stop and immediately opened fire, killing Parminder Singh. The inquiry concluded that the boy killed by the BSF did not have a weapon with him. The pistol shown to have been recovered from his dead body was a plant, the report said. The magistrate indicted the personnel of the BSF responsible for the murders by their names and suggested that they be prosecuted under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code. The recommendation was, as in the other cases cited before, ignored.