The Badal Dal has shortlisted former bureaucrat Darbara Singh Guru as its nominee for the reserved constituency of Fatehgarh Sahib. His name features in a Punjab and Haryana High Court petition as an accused in the killing of 4 Sikh youth in indiscriminate firing in Nakodar in 1986. The Badal Dal of Parkash Singh Badal and his son Sukhbir Singh Badal have perfected the art of rubbing salt on the wounds of Sikh victim families –either by suffering from amnesia or granting political honour to perpetrators of human rights violations. Time to wake up. This is painful reading, but read you must.

If you live in Fatehgarh Sahib parliamentary constituency in Punjab and you know that one of your candidates from the Badal Dal is a liar and an alleged conspirator in the killings of four Sikh youth in Nakodar in 1986, what would you do? If you live elsewhere in Punjab what would you do? If you are a part of the Diaspora what would you do? If you are a friend of the Sikhs, what would you do? If you respect human rights, what would you do?

Like in other parts of India, former bureaucrats, former cricketers, former military personnel and former actors are being inducted into politics to gain favour of having a widespread canvas of candidates. Notwithstanding the past of the nominees, Punjab is no different.

In May 2019, Fatehgarh Sahib voters are likely to see a plethora of ‘formers’ of many political parties.  It is another story that the last Member of Parliament from this constituency was a former diplomat -Harinder Singh Khalsa, who was conspicuous by his absence throughout the five years of the last Parliament, leaving some constituents mocking him on social media, “Our MP is missing. Please help to find him.”

“You have to be heartless to even think that Darbara Singh Guru is not guilty of complicity in the extrajudicial killing and destruction of all evidence relating to the murders perpetrated by this state official in Nakodar ”

Baldev Singh, father of Ravinder Singh, while speaking to WSN

Darbara Singh Guru was the officiating Deputy Commissioner of Jalandhar in February 1986.  As the District Magistrate was absent in the first week of February of that year, he was also the officiating district magistrate.

Following sacrilege on 2 February 1986 in Gurdwara Guru Arjan Sahib in Nakodar, Darbara Singh Guru signed the curfew orders for a curfew on 3 February.  He ordered the protestors to go to a different location where the police opened indiscriminate firing.  It was he, who through his machinations shielded the Hindu miscreants who had committed sacrilege there.  It was right under his nose that the record of police injuries was fudged.

The four Sikh youth extrajudicial killed on 4 February 1986 were Ravinder Singh, son of Baldev Singh, Harminder Singh son of Shankar Singh, Baldhir Singh son of Kartar Singh,  Jhilman Singh son of Mohinder Singh.

As Darbara Singh Guru was the presiding officer on that day, he ordered police firing on innocent and peaceful Sikh protesters marching through the streets to reach the Gurdwara Sahib to take the desecrated Sarups of Guru Granth Sahib to Goindwal Sahib as per Sikh custom.  Four Sikh youth were killed, with one deliberately shot at close range in the mouth. Shockingly, it was Darbara Singh Guru who ordered the conduct of post mortem of the four Sikh youth in the middle of the intervening night of 4-5 February.  Not content, to shield the police personnel, in the name of law and order, it was Darbara Singh Guru, who ordered the cremation of the dead bodies incognito, with no reference to their names or identities in the cremation ground records and also not allowing the families to have a last glimpse of the departed souls.  The curfew continued for 13 days. The Municipal Committee which manages the cremation ground in the city has no record of any cremations during the period. The register is blank for those 13 days!

Ravinder Singh’s father Baldev Singh was the only person who managed to reach the hospital where the post-mortem was done during the night.  With the city under curfew, he started walking to the hospital and because of his insistence; he was taken to the hospital in a police jeep. Once he reached there, he stuck to his guns and told the police that he is not leaving without the dead body of his son and other youth killed. The police, under instructions from the administration, read Darbara Singh Guru, cheated him. They told him to get police clearance. He walked to the police station. In the meanwhile, all four bodies were dumped in a CRPF truck and taken to the cremation grounds. No details were entered.  When Baldev Singh reached the cremation grounds, his heart sank. All four bodies were burning in one pyre.

“You have to be heartless to even think that Darbara Singh Guru is not guilty of complicity in the extrajudicial killing and destruction of all evidence relating to the murders perpetrated by this state official in Nakodar ,” a crestfallen Baldev Singh told The World Sikh News.

 For Punjabi version of this article, click here

The disgusting tale does not end there. One of the four bodies was not identified at all. Perhaps some other individual was cremated!

Doggedly pursuing the case of their engineer-aspirant son Ravinder Singh, who was one of the youth killed, his family has been crying hoarse since the last three decades.  Members of the Punjab Assembly Kanwar Sandhu, Harvinder Singh Phoolka, Gurpartap Singh Wadala and Kultar Singh Sandhwan came to their rescue by raising the issue in the Assembly. Dr Dharamvir Gandhi took it up with the Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh. The Badal Dal kept quiet. All correspondence and pleas to the Captain Amarinder Singh government have heretofore fallen on deaf ears.

As has been revealed by the Speaker of the Punjab Assembly in the last session of the Assembly, the Justice Gurnam Singh Commission Report was surreptitiously placed on the table of the Punjab Assembly on 5 March 2001 by the then Badal Dal government, without the Action Taken Report. Obviously, to shield Darbara Singh Guru, who by then had become close to the Badals and had joined the party, no action was taken; so how could they have filed the Action Taken Report. Moreover, the Congress party -the opposition party at that time, too, was preoccupied with ‘saving the morale of the police’ and colluded with the Badals to have absolutely no discussion whatsoever on the Justice Gurnam Singh Commission Report. They too have had many skeletons in their cupboard. Not very surprisingly, even the present Amarinder Singh government had no time to discuss this report. If incidents of sacrilege of 2015 in Behbal Kalan warrant an SIT, why is the Punjab government shying from one for the Nakodar 1986 firing?

The Justice Gurnam Singh Report submitted to the then government on 31 October 1986, among other things, categorically states that the police injury records were manipulated, no unlawful assembly was declared, no dispersal orders were given, no attempt was made by the officiating District Magistrate Darbara Singh Guru to take precautionary measures to avert any untoward incident and that Darbara Singh Guru got post-mortem conducted without identification of the dead bodies. Moreover, he also did not order the arrest of those Hindu miscreants who were armed to the teeth and were openly fomenting trouble.  WSN has placed all documents with this sad story.

“Darbara Singh Guru or anyone like him must never be tolerated as a nominee, leave alone as a peoples’ representative and lawmaker. The people of Punjab must give a befitting reply to the Badals.”

Baldev Singh, father of martyr Ravinder Singh

A key conclusion of the Justice Gurnam Singh Inquiry Commission was that,  “….the order that effective firing should be on the lower part of the body was totally ignored and it appears that the persons who died were aimed at the vital parts of the bodies so as to kill them.”

 For Punjabi version of this article, click here

Ravinder Singhs’ father Baldev Singh’s petition seeking registration of FIR under section 307 (attempt to murder) against Darbara Singh Guru and others will be taken up by the Punjab and Haryana High Court on 2 April 2019.

Speaking to WSN, Baldev Singh was in tears. He said, “Darbara Singh Guru or anyone like him must never be tolerated as a nominee, leave alone as a peoples’ representative and lawmaker. The people of Punjab must give a befitting reply to the Badals.”

The victim families and Punjab await with abated breath to know whether Darbara Singh Guru will file nomination papers from Fatehgarh Sahib constituency or apply for anticipatory bail or will the High Court order the registration of an FIR and his immediate arrest?

At around the end of this Global TV video, Darbar Singh Guru denies his involvement in the February 1986 incident. 

When Global TV confronted Darbar Singh Guru about his role, he had the gumption to deny being the DC at the time. Listen to the fag end of the video placed in this story. A person who has been the Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and has been appointed a member-secretary of the Guru Granth Sahib World University has categorically denied his presence in an interaction with Punjabi Daily Ajit. The Badal Dal thinks that we are either too naive or stupid.  The conscientious people of Punjab and the constituents of Fatehgarh Sahib have to prove otherwise.

With his nomination, will the Badal Dal heap another injustice and insult on  the people of Punjab?

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When SSP Izhar Alam was proposed as a nominee for the last Punjab Assembly elections, there was an outcry in Punjab; his name was dropped and his wife was nominated instead. Will history be repeated?