Terrorism8211;Punjab police style

It has been a long battle for Singh, a junior engineer with the Punjab State Electricity Board, to bring the guilty police officers to book. However, the post mortem report provides inaccurate details of Harjit8217;s height and weight, giving Singh a faint hope that the dead man may not after all, be his son.

The distraught father and his wife Manjit Kaur is now saddled with the bringing up their two small grandsons. Harjit8217;s wife Amarjit Kaur 28, abandoned the family in 1993 and got married.

Eventually local human rights groups assisted by advocates Ranjan Lakhanpal, Mohinderjit Singh Sethi and international organisations helped to keep the issue alive and burning. Apart from Amnesty International, then British Prime Minister John Major took up Harjit Singh8217;s abduction with Prime Minister Narsimha Rao. According to a letter written by Douglas Hurd, then British foreign minister, Rao had agreed to set up an independent National Human Rights Commission, which would be effective to investigate cases similar to that of Harjit Singh.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court had in 1995 ordered an inquiry into the abduction by a District and Sessions Judge. The judge later recommended that the matter be investigated by the CBI. In 1997, the case was referred to the CBI on the instructions of the High Court.

Says Singh, 8220;I spent over Rs 5 lakh searching for my son and for battling it out in the court with the police.8221; He mortgaged chunks of land in his possession in his native village to raise money besides, taking loans from friends and relatives.

Declaring Harjit Singh to be a terrorist belonging to the Khalistan Commando Force Panjwar, the Majitha police had claimed that he had been killed in cross-fire between a police party and a group of terrorists. According to the police Harjit was being taken for recovery of arms and ammunition when terrorists fired at the police.

The CBI investigation has now established that the encounter never too place. The record pertaining to the alleged encounter was fudged by the 8220;thana munshi8221; on the instructions of the 8220;higher authorities.8221; In reality, it was nothing more than a case of personal enmity between two families.

Kashmir Singh, though satisfied that the CBI had at least termed the encounter as fake, is however dismayed that the investigating agency did not tackle the involvement of senior police officers in the elimination of his son.