AAP party Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Dr Dharamvir Gandhi takes up the case of 4 Sikh youth ex­tra­ju­di­cially killed in 1986 at Nako­dar, near Ja­land­har, Pun­jab, with the In­dian Home Min­is­ter Ra­j­nath Singh who promised to promptly write to Pun­jab gov­ern­ment for re­lease Jus­tice Gur­nam Singh Re­port and le­gal pro­ceed­ings based on it. 

Dharamvir Gandhi, the AAP party Mem­ber of In­dian Par­lia­ment from Pa­tiala con­stituency took up the 32-year-old case of ex­tra­ju­di­cial ex­e­cu­tion of 4 Sikh youth from Nako­dar with In­dian Home Min­is­ter Ra­j­nath Singh and sought the re­lease of Jus­tice Gur­nam Singh Re­port sub­mit­ted to the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment on 31 Oc­to­ber 1986. Dr Gandhi pre­sented his re­quest in per­son to the Home Min­is­ter in Delhi to­day. 

Speak­ing to the World Sikh News on the phone line from Delhi, Dr Gandhi pointed out that though this was to be taken in Par­lia­ment, as the win­ter ses­sion was not work­ing there was no choice but to take this up with the Home Min­is­ter in per­son. He said that “I told the Home Min­is­ter that in­ci­dents like Be­hbal Kalan and Bar­gari have hap­pened ear­lier too and that the guilty po­lice of­fi­cers have not been brought to book in the Nako­dar killings, which hap­pened 32 years back.” He told this cor­re­spon­dent that Home Min­is­ter Ra­j­nath Singh promised to im­me­di­ately write to the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment to make the Jus­tice Gur­nam Singh Re­port pub­lic and to ini­ti­ate pro­ceed­ings against the guilty of­fi­cers and po­lice per­son­nel di­rectly in­volved in the killings of the Sikh youth.

This case was ear­lier taken up by AAP MLA Harvin­der Singh Phoolka and jour­nal­ist-turned politi­cian and MLA Kan­war Sandhu in the last ses­sion of the Pun­jab As­sem­bly in Oc­to­ber this year and there was a de­mand for the re­lease of the two-vol­ume Com­mis­sion of In­quiry re­port.

“Jus­tice Gur­nam Singh in­quiry de­scribed the Nako­dar killings as “avoid­able and un­jus­ti­fied and “aimed to kill.”

Kan­war Sandhu who as a jour­nal­ist has had the op­por­tu­nity to look at the re­port, though un­of­fi­cially, had then filed a story in the Tri­bune which nar­rated that the Jus­tice Gur­nam Singh in­quiry de­scribed the Nako­dar killings as “avoid­able and un­jus­ti­fied and “aimed to kill.”

Kan­war Sandhu has also writ­ten to the Chief Min­is­ter Amarinder Singh seek­ing re­lease of the re­port but the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment has not re­sponded in any man­ner.

32 years ago, in Feb­ru­ary 1986, four young Sikhs from the sleepy town of Nakokar in Ja­land­har dis­trict of Pun­jab lit­er­ally ran out of their houses to par­tic­i­pate in a protest march or­gan­ised by the All In­dia Sikh Stu­dents Fed­er­a­tion against the sac­ri­lege of Guru Granth Sahib in a lo­cal Gur­d­wara by mys­te­ri­ous un­known el­e­ments whose clear in­ten­tion was to ma­lign the Sikhs and den­i­grate the Sikh re­li­gion and hurt the feel­ings and sen­ti­ments of the Sikhs. Due to the clear com­plic­ity of po­lice higher ups and the state ma­chin­ery the names of those who burnt the 5 Sarups of Guru Granth Sahib were never dis­closed nor was a se­ri­ous in­ves­ti­ga­tion done into this. 

These four young Sikhs -Ravin­der Singh Lit­tran, Bald­hir Singh Ram­garh, Jhilman Singh Gor­sian, and Har­min­der Singh Chlu­per, were shot in cold blood and killed. Har­min­der Singh Chlu­per was shot while in cus­tody. Suc­cumb­ing to the pres­sure of the Sikh San­gat and the fam­i­lies of the vic­tims, the gov­ern­ment of Pun­jab con­sti­tuted the Jus­tice Gur­nam Singh Com­mis­sion to in­ves­ti­gate the in­ci­dent of sac­ri­lege, the killings of the Sikh youth and their un­cer­e­mo­ni­ous and rushed cre­ma­tion with­out proper rites and with­out the pres­ence of the par­ents.

Ravin­der Singh Lit­tran’s fa­ther Baldev Singh while talk­ing to World Sikh News said, “32 years is a long pe­riod. We have tried all av­enues but to no avail. I thank Dr. Gandhi has taken this up at the high­est level with the gov­ern­ment of In­dia. We anx­iously await the re­sponse by the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment to this plea and that of leg­is­la­tors Kan­war Sandhu and Harvin­der Singh Phoolka.”

“I will not rest till jus­tice is done.” said Baldev Singh.