4 min readJalandharFeb 15, 2023 01:42 AM IST
First published on: Feb 14, 2023 at 02:05 PM IST
The families of 1986 Nakodar killing victims have alleged that the office of Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann callously forwarded an open letter from them to the principal secretary of home, completely disregarding the emotional weight and urgency of their plea.
“This inaction reeks of apathy and indifference, as if the lives of four young, peaceful and unarmed students brutally murdered by state police in broad daylight, mean nothing,” they said, adding that the Chief Minister’s Office merely forwarded the letter without mentioning the urgency of the matter. They added that if the matter goes to any department, the resolution will take longer.
On February 4, 1986, four unarmed members of the All India Sikh Students Federation — Ravinder Singh, Baldhir Singh, Jhilman Singh, and Harminder Singh — were killed by the Punjab Police while peacefully protesting the desecration of the Sikh scripture Sri Guru Granth Sahib in Jalandhar’s Nakodar. The incident has come to be known as ‘Saka Nakodar’. ‘Saka’ in Punjabi means a historic incident or tragedy involving sacrifice.
In the light of assertions by Mann that the state government is fully committed to ensuring justice in the Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura incidents, the families of the Nakodar victims recently wrote an open letter to Mann seeking his help in their quest for justice. “The families have been waiting 13,520 days for the perpetrators of this heinous act to be brought to justice, but so far, their cries for justice have gone unanswered. They believe that it is the responsibility of the Chief Minister to ensure that the case is given the attention it deserves and that the necessary steps are taken to bring those responsible to justice,” the letter read.
“We are still haunted by the memory of our loved ones, who were brutally murdered, and then had their post-mortems conducted in the dead of the same night, with their bodies being illegally cremated by the police the next morning. This is not just a heart-wrenching reality, but an alarming truth, that the state-appointed judicial commission’s inquiry has remained buried for 37 long, excruciating years while our families continue to suffer and await justice,” said Bapu Baldev Singh, father of Ravinder Singh, seeking punishment for the officials involved in the killing.
He added that this lack of action is not just a failure of the system, but a failure of humanity, and it is nothing short of shocking, and sought urgent action in the matter. “We urge the Punjab chief minister to take immediate action and provide justice to our loved ones whose lives were taken away without any reason. We also call upon the principal secretary of home to take up this matter with the utmost urgency. The families of Saka Nakodar victims will not rest until we see justice done.”
The Bargari sacrilege and Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura police shootings of 2015 have been widely described as incidents that mirror the Nakodar sacrilege and subsequent police killings. Both incidents involved the desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib and the subsequent killing of innocent protesters by the police, leading to widespread outrage.
(From left) Ravinder Singh, Harminder Singh, Baldhir Singh 
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