Dead Or Alive?

‘Dead’ terrorists are even challenging the police for declaring them so. Gurnam Singh of Bundala village, Ferozepur district, fled the Golden Temple days before Operation Bluestar. In 1994, he was declared killed in an encounter in Ropar district. However, as Gurnam told Outlook, "I was living all along under the assumed name of Surjit Singh at Mansandwala village in Majitha district. In 1998, the police learned of my true identity and arrested me." But not before the 1994 ‘killing’ had earned the Ropar police a reward and the 1998 arrest fetched promotions for a couple of Tarn Taran police officials. "The then DGP, P.C. Dogra, had promised that he would enquire into my ‘death’, but nothing has happened. If now the police say that my death was a mistake, why did people claim rewards for it?" he asks.

More bizarre is the case of Harpreet Singh ‘Happy’ of the Babbar Khalsa. Not only was he ‘killed’ in an encounter in 1992, the police even handed over the ‘remains’ of his cremated body to his kin. His brother Dalbir Singh told Outlook: "In 1995, we came to know that he was alive and advised him to go to the court to challenge his ‘death’." Harpreet petitioned the Punjab and Haryana High Court with his claim of being alive and the court directed the police to enquire into his ‘killing’.

But Harpreet is once again on the run. He fears police harassment, he told this correspondent from his place of hiding. Says his advocate Ranjan Lakhanpal: "The police have charged him in many false cases, including murder, to get back at him for exposing them." Driven to despair, Harpreet says he would rather be dead. He had compiled a book of his poems called After I Died. It’s one of the few things the family keeps to remember their son by.

Narain Chaura, a Khalistani currently on bail, says, "The movement is dead. What do they have to fear?"

Jagdish Singh Deeshe is another terrorist to have been ‘killed’ in 1993. A police officer was awarded a medal and the Rs 5 lakh award for the ‘effort’. In 2004, however, Jagdish fell into the hands of the police and was sent to jail. Twice condemned, he wrote to the President last October for action against the cop who claimed the medal and the cash prize for his ‘death’.

That many terrorists believed to have been killed in encounters are living incognito inside and outside Punjab was something diehard Khalistanis, as also human rights organisations, have known for quite some time. What is less known is how the police themselves have illegally ‘helped’ a chosen few in their rehabilitation. Sukhwinder Singh ‘Sukhi’, once an ‘area commander’ of the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF), was declared dead in police records. But he was found living in Jalandhar under a new name—Harjit Singh Kahlon. All the cases against him have been closed as ‘untraced’, and Sukhi enjoys the patronage of none other than the DGP, Punjab Police, S.S. Virk. As for his rehabilitation package, not only does it include a tours and travel business, but also accommodation in government complexes in Jalandhar and Ludhiana.

This when former militants like him are still wanted in old cases of terrorism and have for several years remained proclaimed offenders. DGP Virk says that there are at least 300 such ‘rehabilitated’ terrorists who have been extended police help because of the assistance they have rendered in fighting terrorism. "They are the unsung heroes who deserve sympathy and gratitude," he says. So what if there is no legal provision to rehabilitate those wanted in serious crimes.

Sarabjit Singh, who was DGP in Punjab police from 1999 to 2000, is livid. Talking to Outlook, he said, "The DGP can exercise considerable discretion while recruiting policemen and can relax physical criteria in deserving cases. But the discretion does not extend to waiving the police verification of candidates or recruiting them under false names. Clearly verification of these people was either not done or was fabricated." Besides, he points out, "How can you exonerate these people of the crimes committed by them? The unwritten rule was that terrorists-turned-police informers were to be dealt with leniently. Some, who were not killers, were taken into the police as spos. If their conduct was good, they were inducted as constables but certainly not without proper verification."

Kewal Singh of the Khalistan Commando Force is a cop in Jalandhar now. His family doesn’t discuss his past.

Outlook visited one such constable at House No. F25 in Chhoti Baradari in Jalandhar. Once the dreaded terrorist Kewal Singh of the KCF, he today wears the respectable veneer of constable Satnam Singh. His wife Manjit Kaur refused to answer any queries except to say that her husband is in the police, but his neighbours did say that Satnam and Sukhi were in touch with each other. Sukhi, in fact, was staying in the same colony till a couple of years ago. He has since shifted to a bigger house in a civilian locality.

Other Sukhi associates have also had it good. Balkar Singh (Bittu) and Nimma John have been recruited into the police. Nimma now works in the intelligence wing of Ludhiana police and goes by the name of Nirmaljit Singh. Tinu Bajwa alias Satbir Singh is another former terrorist who once operated with Sukhi but who now lives in a police colony in Ludhiana.

Ever since his cover was blown, Sukhi is being closely guarded by the police. When Outlook interviewed him in a Chandigarh market, he was accompanied by an armed escort. Asked about it, he says he and his ilk need protection from Khalistanis who may still be active. But, as Narain Singh Chaura, a Khalistani currently out on bail, says, "The movement is dead. All its protagonists are toothless. Daljit Bittu is the most dreaded of the former terrorists and Sukhi attended his wedding last year. So, what does he have to fear?"

With dead terrorists tumbling out of police cupboards alive, the obvious question is: whose bodies were shown as dead? The Khalsa Action Committee (KAC), a human rights organisation, had compiled a list of 1,838 bodies illegally cremated by the Punjab police during the heyday of terrorism. And activists see a possible link between this list of the missing and the ‘dead’ terrorists.

Meanwhile, for those stuck between death and life, the courts are the only recourse. They are seeking protection from the Punjab and Haryana High Court "as they might be eliminated by the police anytime to protect themselves". There would be no escaping this death.