Giving information about the dead to the family members.
The CBI special court has convicted Surendra Pal Singh, the then SHO of Sarhali police station in Tarn Taran, in a 32-year-old kidnapping, illegal detention and disappearance case. He has been found guilty of sections 120B, 342, 364, 365. From the court 23 December
.
Police had taken him away from home on the pretext of questioning.
This case is of 31 October 1992. That evening, Sukhdev Singh Vice Principal and his 80-year-old father-in-law Sulkhan Singh (freedom fighter resident of Bhakna) were detained by the police team led by ASI Avtar Singh. Avtar Singh had told the family members that Sukhdev Singh and Sulkhan Singh had been called for questioning by police station in-charge Surendra Pal Singh. Then both of them stayed in the police station for 3 days. Sarhali was kept illegally in Tarn Taran, where family and teachers union members met him and provided him food, clothes, etc., but he was not heard from thereafter.
Police first implicated him in a false case
In this case, Sukhdev Singh’s wife Sukhwant Kaur complained to the higher police officials that Sukhdev Singh and Sulkhan Singh have been implicated in criminal cases. but to no avail. At that time Sukhdev Singh was working as a lecturer vice principal in Government Senior Secondary School, Lopoke District, Amritsar and his father-in-law Sulkhan Singh was a freedom fighter. He was one of the close associates of Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna during the independence movement.
Mohali CBI court.
This is how the police created the story of his death
In this matter, former MLAs Satpal Dung and Vimala Dung had also written separate letters to the then Chief Minister of Punjab Beant Singh and the Chief Minister had also replied that they were not in police custody. In the year 2003, some police personnel contacted Sukhwant Kaur i.e. Sukhdev Singh’s wife and got her to sign blank papers and after a few days, she was handed over the death certificate of Sukhdev Singh, in which it was written that he died on 8 July 1993. It happened on
This is how this fight went
The family was informed that Sukhdev Singh died during torture and his body was thrown into the Harike Canal along with Sulkhan Singh. Sukhwant Kaur approached the Supreme Court and the Punjab and Haryana High Court in the case of kidnapping, illegal detention and disappearance of her husband and father.
But in another case in November 1995, the Supreme Court directed the CBI to investigate the matter of mass cremation of the dead. Human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalda revealed that the Punjab Police had cremated the bodies considering them unclaimed.
Subsequently, during the preliminary investigation, CBI recorded the statement of Sukhwant Kaur on 20 November 1996 and on the basis of her statement, on 6 March 1997, ASI Avtar Singh and SI Surendra Pal Singh then SHO Sarhali and others were booked in the year 2000 under Section A case was registered under 364/34.
CBI had filed the closure report in 1996. Which was rejected by the Patiala Court in 2002 and further investigation was ordered. Finally, in 2009, CBI filed a charge sheet in the court against Surinder Pal and Avtar Singh. After this, charge sheet was filed in the court in 2016.
The guilty SHO is serving his sentence in jail.
Convict Surenderpal Singh is already serving life imprisonment in the then SHO Jaswant Singh Khalda murder case. He has also been sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in another case of kidnapping and disappearance of four members of a family from Jio Bala village of Tarn Taran.