1992 fake encounter case: Harjit Singh’s kin feel their struggle vindicated

Rampreet Singh, a resident of Buttar village, was two years old when his father Harjit Singh was kidnapped and killed in a fake encounter by three policemen three decades ago. He witnessed the struggle of his family to secure justice for his father.

Rampreet Singh said his family was left shattered after the brutal encounter by the cops in 1992. While his mother got married again and started living separately, his grandfather Kashmir Singh made rounds of courts his entire life seeking justice for his son Harjit Singh. He died of cancer in 2019.

“I wish my grandfather Kashmir Singh had been alive today to see his struggle bear fruit and the family finally get justice after three decades. Though it is too late but it should serve as a reminder to those policemen who killed innocent people for their greed,” Rampreet Singh pointed out.

Yesterday, the CBI court at Mohali convicted three cops including the then SHO, Lopoke police station, Dharam Singh, Gurdev Singh and Surinder Singh who were sentenced to life for staging the encounter in 1992. They were found guilty of criminal conspiracy, murder and fabrication of records in the case.

Rampreet said that he belonged to the family of freedom fighter Bishan Singh Buttar who served in the British Indian Army and led the revolt by 21 Cavalry soldiers in Secunderabad when World War II broke out. Influenced by the Communist ideology, he had refused to go to war in Egypt for the British army. The British army had imprisoned 108 Indian soldiers. They were disarmed, charged with inciting rebellion. He was hanged in Secunderabad in 1940.

“We had never expected that this could happen to our family that had made the supreme sacrifice during the freedom struggle,” he pointed out.

THE CASE

Harjit Singh along with Lakhwinder Singh and Jaspinder Singh were shown as killed in May 1992 and their bodies cremated as unclaimed. Harjit’s father Kashmir Singh had filed a writ petition before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, alleging that his son was picked up by the police on April 29, 1992, from Thathian bus stand near Sathiala in Amritsar district and kept in Mall Mandi Interrogation Centre at Amritsar. They were shown as killed in May 1992. The matter was handed over to the CBI which registered a case in 1998.