‘40 years of silence’: Families of Saka Nakodar firing victims make final appeal at Akal Takht as they eye international forums for justice
Victims of the ‘Saka Nakodar’ police firing were remembered as “sons of the Khalsa Punjab” who laid down their lives while protesting the sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib.
Students at Punjabi University, Patiala, pay tribute to the victims and demand justice on the 40th anniversary of the of the Saka Nakodar police firing. (Express photo) Four decades after the ‘Saka Nakodar’ police firing, the families of four young Sikh men who were killed in Punjab’s Jalandhar gathered at Sri Akal Takht Sahib on Wednesday to mark the anniversary, accusing successive governments of failing to deliver justice despite repeated assurances at the highest levels.
The families offered prayers for the victims and reiterated that their struggle for accountability continues as state institutions have “failed them” even after 40 years.
The four unarmed students — Ravinder Singh, Baldhir Singh, Jhilman Singh, and Harminder Singh — were shot dead by the police on February 4, 1986, during a sacrilege related protests in Nakodar. The incident was similar to the killings of two Sikhs protesting against the sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib in police firing at Behbal Kalan in Faridkot on October 14, 2015.
The then-Punjab chief minister, Surjit Singh Barnala, ordered a judicial inquiry by a retired Punjab and Haryana High Court judge, Justice Gurnam Singh. The panel submitted its report to the Punjab Government on October 31, 1986.
The inquiry report noted many contradictions in the police’s version, and recorded that all the men were shot dead from very close range in their upper bodies. Harminder was shot in the mouth, it said.
‘4 decades of silence, delay and injustice’
Victims were remembered by their families as “sons of the Khalsa Punjab” who laid down their lives while protesting the sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib, which they said had come under attack on that day.
Baldev Singh, father of Ravinder Singh and a central figure in the campaign for justice, said he has endured “four decades of silence, delay and injustice” and that the system has still not owned up to the killings. “While age is not on my side, my commitment to get justice for my son and three other young men is as strong as it was forty years ago. I will now approach international forums for justice,” he said.
‘Final appeal’
Families say every “democratic door” has been knocked over the years — from chief ministers and state governments to courts, Governors and even Presidents — but the state has not ensured even “basic accountability” for the killings.
“Their blood was spilled in broad daylight, and yet the truth has been buried under layers of bureaucracy, political hesitation and institutional indifference,” the families said in their joint statement, stressing that their struggle has always remained peaceful, lawful and rooted in faith in democratic institutions.
They maintained they have never sought revenge, only “truth, recognition, and a transparent, time-bound judicial process,” and warn that history will judge whether the present government shows the courage to act or allows yet another generation to inherit “unresolved grief.”
The families described this 40th anniversary as their “final appeal,” not because their pain has lessened but because, they said, 40 years is already too long for any democracy to deny justice to bereaved parents and siblings.
Far from fading, they added, the memory of the four men has “hardened into resolve” that will now increasingly look beyond domestic forums and onto international platforms in the search for justice.
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