After a grueling 32-year legal battle, families of the victims of the 1993 Tarn Taran fake encounter killings have finally seen justice. On August 1, a CBI court in Mohali sentenced five former Punjab Police officers to rigorous life imprisonment for the murder of seven individuals in staged encounters. The verdict, delivered by CBI Special Judge Baljinder Singh Sra, convicted the officers of criminal conspiracy, murder, and destruction of evidence under the Indian Penal Code.
The convicted include former Deputy Superintendent of Police Bhupinderjit Singh (61), retired as SSP; former Assistant Sub-Inspector Devinder Singh (58), retired as DSP; former Assistant Sub-Inspector Gulbarg Singh (72); former Inspector Suba Singh (83); and former ASI Raghbir Singh (63). Five other accused—Inspector Gurdev Singh, Sub-Inspector Gian Chand, ASI Jagir Singh, and Head Constables Mohinder Singh and Aroor Singh—died during the trial.
The case stems from the killings of Special Police Officers (SPOs) Shinder Singh, Desa Singh, Sukhdev Singh, and civilians Balkar Singh, Mangal Singh, Sarabjit Singh, and Harvinder Singh on July 12 and July 28, 1993, in Tarn Taran. The CBI investigation, initiated in 1999 following a 1996 Supreme Court order on mass cremations in Punjab, revealed a chilling sequence of events.
On June 27, 1993, a police team led by then-Station House Officer Gurdev Singh falsely implicated the victims in a robbery case, abducting them from a contractor’s residence. On July 12, the police claimed the victims were killed in a crossfire during an operation in Gharka village, but forensic evidence and post-mortem reports confirmed torture and discrepancies, with bodies cremated as unclaimed despite known identities. A second encounter on July 28 killed three more victims.
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Nishan Singh, now 32, was born two months after his father, SPO Shinder Singh, was killed. His mother, Narinder Kaur (60), endured decades of hardship, working as a farm laborer and dish cleaner to raise him in Rani Wallah village. “We are happy with the verdict; the stigma of being called militants is gone,” Kaur said, demanding a government job for her son. Similarly, Ranjit Kaur, widow of victim Sarabjit Singh, recounted paying a ₹30,000 bribe to then-Inspector Suba Singh for her husband’s release, only for him to be killed. Raising her two young children alone, she too seeks a government job for her son, Jagjit, a factory worker.
The verdict brings closure to families who faced social stigma and financial struggles. The CBI probe exposed a pattern of extrajudicial killings during Punjab’s militancy era, with over 2,000 unidentified bodies cremated between 1984 and 1994, as documented by human rights reports. The Supreme Court’s intervention in 1996, following activism by figures like Jaswant Singh Khalra, who was later killed, led to the CBI’s involvement. This case marks a rare instance of accountability, with only a handful of convictions in similar cases, such as the 2018 sentencing of six policemen for a 1991 fake encounter.
The Punjab government has since introduced rehabilitation measures, including jobs and pensions for victims’ families, but delays in implementation persist. The Tarn Taran case underscores the need for systemic reforms to prevent such atrocities, with calls for stronger oversight of police actions and faster judicial processes. As families like Nishan’s and Ranjit’s find relief, they hope the verdict deters future abuses while honoring the memory of their loved ones.
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