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SSP GOVIND RAM: THE TERROR IN BATALA
On February 2, 1989, two members of the Committee, Tapan Bose and I, were visiting a primary school- Guru Nanak Dev Academy- in Batala, a sub-divisional town in Gurdaspur district. The school, we had been told, was concerned mainly with upbringing and education of the children whose parents had suffered State atrocities. Fifteen children studying at the Academy had lost their fathers in so-called encounters. At this school, we taught about the campaign of terror which Govind Ram, the Senior Superintendent of Police of Batala police had been carrying out in the villages within his domain, ostensibly to demoralise the Sikh militants.
A teacher at the Academy, whose name we shall withhold, narrated to us an incident that epitomized the police campaigns under Govind Ram. In the forenoon of January 10, 1989, contingents of the Punjab Police and the Border Security Force in hundreds swooped down on the village, Sarchur, which has a population of 4000. The forces were being led by the SSP, Govind Ram. He or¬dered them to round up the Sikh inhabitants of the village and a number of small villages in its vicinity like Kotli, Parowal, Nasirke, Kalowal, Tripaye and Pangale and to muster them at the focal point in the outskirts of Sarchur (the ground for cattle fairs and village markets). Mixed batches of the BSF and the Punjab police went round the villages, pulled out the persons working in their fields, walking in the bazaars and lurking in their houses and shepherded them to the specified location.
There, Govind Ram, as a surely masters pouting over his slaves, harangued them, accusing them of harbouring terrorists and charged their women of cohabiting with them. He then ordered all the young persons in the assembly to fall on their bellies to the ground, which they did. The personnel of the Punjab police and the BSF lashed them with their leather belts, batons and bamboo poles. The public flagellation lasted for more than one hour. Govind Ram then asked the assembly to rant after him the outra¬geous pronouncements he execrated for Mrs. Surjit Kaur, an Akali Dal leader from Sarchur, in jail for the last five months and her young daughters living with their father in the village. At this point a retired army officer, Charan Singh of the village Pharow¬al protested. He refused to abuse them.
Govind Ram ordered that he be taken into custody. Charan Singh was caught and pushed into a police truck. Govind Ram then forced the villagers to repeat those abuses and went on to pronounce that if ever Surjit Kaur came out of jail he would make her and her daughters dance naked before a similar audience in the vil¬lage. Govind Ram went away with his forces at dusk after announc¬ing that the next time it will be the turn of the women to be assembled and treated in a similar way.
The narrator of his incident also told us that many women of the village Sarchur had left their homes in panic to live with their relatives elsewhere. He also gave us many specific instances of police atrocities, which in their magnitude and relentlessness seemed to surpass what we had so far learnt of the State terror in Punjab. We decided to carry out an investigation by personally going to the affected villages and speaking to the victims.
Two members of the Committee, Ashok Agarwaal and I, went back to Batala in the morning of February 10. We did not intimate anyone there of our arrival in advance. We first went to the Guru Nanak Dev Academy. We learnt there that the police have meanwhile forced those children whose fathers had been killed in “encoun¬ter" to withdraw from the school.
We asked the teacher whether he would accompany us to some of the villages involved in the incident of January 10. He agreed.
We drove to Sarchur, 18 kilometres from Batala. On the way, we passed many check posts operated by the BSF. We were stopped at one. The BSF personnel equipped with metal detectors and their rifles closing on to our faces unusually asked us the usual questions: Where are you coming from; where are you going; what do you have in your luggage, etc. We told them. They stood still without flinching their guns and coldly eyed our baggage for nearly one minute. They waved our car to move on. We wondered whether they had also been equipped with X-ray vision.
Approaching the village Sarchur, we noticed two young persons in close-cropped hair and moustache walking down the road. Our companion asked the car to stop and called them out. Although they seemed to recognise him, a well-known and respected elder of the village as we found out, they became nervous on seeing us. We requested them to tell us what had happened on January 10. They remained fidgety and pale in their faces. They would not speak and seemed eager to go way. We let them go away.
Then we noticed a middle aged Sikh driving down a tractor our way. Our companion waved him to stop and conferred with him for five minutes, telling him that we had come to investigate the incident of January 10; that we were not police detectives and that he should tell us what have been happening. He began to talk excitedly and somewhat incoherently. We asked him for his name. He would not tell. We asked him whether we could tape-record the conversation. He said no. When we took out a notebook to write, he said do not write. The fear in this village began to confound us. We tried to explain to him that it was important for us to record the facts and that the identity of the persons we speak to would not be revealed if they desired to remain anony¬mous. He looked doubtful and went away with the excuse that the he had some work in Batala to attend to.
We drove into the village and stopped near a cluster of houses where some persons were moving about, cutting fodder and attending to other chores. Our companion again talked to them about the purpose of our visit. We assured them at the very outset that their identities would not be revealed, and we did not ask for their names. Soon twenty to twenty-five persons of the village gath¬ered round us. They told us about the incident of January 10 in vivid detail that we had already learnt from our companion. There were some persons in the crowd who had been intently following the discussion without so far taking part. When we asked our interlocutors to tell us more closely why Govind Ram had singled out Jasbir Kaur and her daughters for the insults he heaped on them, and to tell us their assessment of what exactly he wanted, some of these persons who had so far remained silent interjected. "We are ashamed to talk about this episode. We may be punished if we tell you," they said.
"Why are you so afraid? No one can punish you for talking to us," we tried to calm him or her.
"You want to know why and who are we afraid of? Then come with us". They got into the car and directed us to the village Na¬sirke, some kilometres away. We stopped outside the house of one Pal Singh. They went into Pal Singh's house and brought him out. He looked about sixty and had only one arm. We did not know what to ask the persons who brought us to him explained that Pal Singh was just then returning from the jail to Batala after committing his three sons to judicial custody. What did they do?
What did they do?
Nothing, Pal Singh said?
What do you mean by nothing? You must know if you went to make them over to jail.
I have sent them to jail so that Govind Ram may not kill them, Pal Singh said. We did not understand.
You see, my sons, Dhanraj Singh, Ranjit Singh and Dilbag Singh, had been implicated in a case of murder sometime in 1986. The case was false and flimsy and my sons got bailed out. But since their release, the police have been trying to recruit them as informers. When Govind Ram became the SSP, Batala, Harassment against us became suddenly intense and unbearable. The police come and pick us all up- my sons, me and even my father. My father, Mota Singh, is ninety, a decrepit old person. Even he is not spared. On January 9, when the police came to pick us up, they beat up my old father with shoes.
Can we see your father?
Mota Singh, wobbling on reedy legs and supported by two persons, comes out. Lal Singh continues with the story: Govind Ram told us that he would kill my sons if they did not join his ranks. We know that his tongue is unerring in evil as are his hands in killing innocents. So I cancelled my sons' bail and sent them back to jail.
Who will look after you and your father?
"Wahe Guru" will.
We went back to Sarchur. Our teacher companion took us to one house. An old person with a silver beard, small bulgy eyes and a gloomy frown, his forehead puckered in umpteen furrows was sit¬ting on a bed. He spoke to us clearly and tranquilly, words rising to the surface as if from a deep stillness within.
We asked him: Why is Govind Ram doing this? Does he suspect that terrorists are hiding in here? Does he suspect any one in partic¬ular? What does he want you people to do?
The old person explained: There have been many police raids on this village. Every house has been searched for weapons and terrorists on a number of occasions. Never was anything recovered. No mili¬tant has been arrested from here. We do not know why he is terrorising us. In this village, most of us here are Amritdharis- baptised Sikhs. May be he thinks that we are the enemies. May be he wants us to become the enemies. For how long can young persons, with their tradition of valour and honour, suffer these atroci¬ties and dignities? Take the case of the Granthi, Avtar Singh, of the village Gurdwara. You would not perhaps believe if I tell you how the police have tortured his spouse and him for no crime of their own.
We would like to talk to them ourselves, we told him. He sent for a person to accompany us to the house of Avtar Singh.
After some preliminaries, he narrated to us his story. One night in May or June of the last year, some people who were armed came to my house. They wanted to be fed and took me away to the Gurd¬wara by force. I did not know who they were. They were clearly fugitives. In the past, the police and the BSF personnel had been forcing me to give them food, tea and beds to sleep. One of these persons who had eaten at the Gurdwara was later nabbed. Under inter¬rogation, he told the police that he had eaten at the Gurdwara. The police came to arrest me.
When was this?
On fourth or fifth of October 1988, I was not at home. I had gone with food to the flood affected area. When the police came, my spouse, Amarjit Kaur, and my mother, Gurmeet Kaur, who is 85, were alone at home. The police ransacked the house, pulled down two walls in the courtyard, dug up the hearth and took away all our belongings including two bicycles. And they took my spouse into custody. Amarjit Kaur, his spouse, was sitting next to him. We requested her to tell us herself what happened to her after her custody. We asked, "Were there women's police at the time of your arrest?"
No, they were all men. At the police station, I saw Amarjit, my brother who had been picked up from my parental house in Peduwal village near Kalanaur in Gurdaspur district. The police compelled my brother to beat me and ...," she stammered. Tears were rolling down her cheeks.
"I was tortured terribly for eighteen days. My hands were tied to the back. A wooden roller was placed on my thighs. Some men stood on it and others rotated it on my legs.
Avtar Singh asked me to touch her thighs and to feel the wounds. I felt them; nodular rings of ruptured flesh.
Which police station were you in?
"At the Sadar police station in Batala, my husband came there to rescue me. He was taken into custody."
We turned back to Avtar Singh. He started speaking.
"I was tortured for thirty days. My interrogation used to take place mostly at nights. They used to tie my legs and my hands to the back with an iron rod inserted under the arms and with a rope fastened to the rod and with its other end going through a hook on the ceiling while they beat me with sticks from below. I was given electric shocks with one wire attached to my genitals. A roller was rotated on my legs in the same way as my wife's, and my legs were stretched out until my pelvis ripped. "Do you want to see my injuries?” Avtar Singh asked.
No. But tell us what they wanted to know from you.
They asked me about the terrorists. Where I had kept weapons for them, etc. They asked me why I did not catch them by the scruff of their necks and do them over to the police. They asked me why I did not put poison in their food.
What were your answers?
I do not know how I could have nabbed them while they were armed to their teeth. I do not keep poison at the Gurdwara to mix in the food we cook at the Langar- the Guru's kitchen.
But why did you not inform the police later that the terrorists had come to eat at Gurdwara?
I did not, because I know that if the terrorists came to wipe out my family there would not be any police to stop them. Police are only to torture the innocent and the hapless, not to stop the terrorists. After torturing me for thirty days, they released me because I had done nothing wrong. But they came to arrest me again. They kept coming just to pick me up. Many police officers know me by now. Some of them tell me that they too are helpless. The SSP wants them to keep the lock ups full. He wants to see them full during inspections of the police stations. But it was becoming unbearable for me. On January 9, I came back to my village after spending one night in the lock up at the Fatehgarh Churian police station. Not even one hour had lapsed after my return that the SP Head Quarters, I think his name was Anil Kumar Sharma, turned up with his cops to take me away again. He took me to the BSF interrogation centre at Aliyal, near the canal bridge. I was again tortured in routine. They released me after twelve days. Now I do not sleep at my house. The police had come the last night too. My mother was at home. They went away after kicking a bucket of milk. Even in the daytime, I leave a boy on the roof to keep watch if the police are coming. I cannot bear these tortures any more. I will run away," he started sobbing. We went back to the house of the old person who had directed us to the Granthi. His grand son who had also been rounded up and beaten at the focal point on January 10 had brought over to his house a number of young persons of the village who had all been subjected to the same treatment. Many of them showed us blue patches on soles of their feet and ankles that remained from the beatings on that day. While we were talking to these boys in the courtyard of the house, a person in late forties drove in on a scooter. He is the old man's son. He joined the conversation and said:
The elders of the village have told the SSP that they are willing to help the Government to fight the terrorists but the police must stop inflicting atrocities on innocent people. We shall co-operate in any manner they desire us to do. If the police have evi¬dence that anyone in particular is a terrorist or keeps illegal weapons, they can take him away. If they want to interrogate someone, they only have to inform the Panchayat - the council of five elders- and we shall bring that person to the police sta¬tion any time specified. I have even told Govind Ram that if he wanted it, we shall send our boys away to our relatives outside the State. We would furnish him with the particulars of where they stay and what they do, and he could keep a tag on them. Govind Ram said, that will not be necessary. But within a short time after I came back to my house, the police were again there to pick up my son. For how long can we tolerate this? For how long can the Sikhs take these indignities? No one is spared. To be a Sikh in itself has become an offence. Take the case of Nirmal Singh, a soldier in the army. He had come on some days of leave to be with his family in the village. On January 10, Govind Ram had him rounded up and marched to the focal point along with other persons. He showed his identity card. But he was still beaten up like the rest. Do you think this soldier will defend the country that treats him and his brethren like slaves with great enthusiasm? If you do not believe me, then write to him or his Command¬ing Officer and find out. Shall I give you his address?
Yes, please.
Here it is Sep. Nirmal Singh No 2479898 HQ COY PL.MOR.C/O 56 A.P.O. 19 Punjab.
We asked him about Surjit Kaur and her background. She is an Akali Dal leader of the district level and is languishing in Batala jail for the last five months. Her son, Prabhjot Singh, who lives abroad, came to attend one of his sisters' marriages in September 1988. He too was arrested and implicated in a case under the Arms Act. He is now in Srinagar jail, in solitary confinement. Her spouse, Surinder Singh, is a farmer who is picked up off and on and tortured without any reason. Their two young daughters, Manjot Kaur, 15 and Rajinder Kaur 10, had also been picked up and tortured.
We go on to their house accompanied by our teacher companion.
Surinder Singh was in his fields. We met his daughters. Rajinder Kaur had her hair tied into a bun and wore a black turban, a sign of protest. It was difficult for us to talk to them about plight, considering their age and their apparent haplessness. But they were forthright, though not very well informed.
Who looks after you two sisters? We asked them.
Our father. He is at the farm. He is very much a harassed person. The police had taken him away at least ten times so far. The police are also bothering my sister and me very much.
How are they bothering you?
They had taken us away to the police station.
When was this? Do you remember the date?
No, Sir may be a month ago.
Which police station were you taken to?
To Sadar police station, Batala.
Why did they want to take you away? Did they explain?
No Sir. They just told our father that they were taking away his daughters.
What did they do to you at the police station?
They did the most humiliating things sir.
Tears rolled through the heavy lashes hazing over the hazel eyes of Manjit Kaur like a veil against the un-alleviative reality they beheld.
To change the topic, we asked: How is your mother? Have you been to see her at the jail?
No sir. How can we go there alone? Our father has to look after the fields. But we have seen her in the court. She is very ill. The police had beaten her very much.
How do you know?
Our mother told us this in the court.
Have you heard of Govind Ram?
Yes sir. He had forced the people of the village to abuse our mother. Also us. When the police come to our house, they use the same abuses on us. We are afraid of them, sir. We do not dare to even leave the house, sir.
Charan Singh, a retired army officer who had been taken into custody for objecting to Govind Ram's execrations against Surjit Kaur and her daughters on January 10, lives in Pharowal vil¬lage, four kilometres from Sarchur. We went to see him.
Why were you taken into custody on January 10, we asked him.
I could not bear the filthy abuses for Surjit Kaur that Govind Ram was compelling the villagers to rant after him. I protested. Govind Ram took offence and proclaimed that I was the Guru of the terrorists. I told him that I was not a Guru of the terrorists but a soldier who had retired after fighting for the nation in two ways. But he ordered my custody. I was pushed into a police truck and driven away. I was locked up in a cell in Fatehgarh Churian police station. One inspector Mander Singh was the in-charge. For three days, I remained there without clothes in this winter, without a glass of water and not so much as a morsel of food. I am 62. They knew that I am a retired soldier, not a thief. But I am a Sikh that is perhaps a bigger crime than to be a thief.
Sadness cast a shadow over his face. Words came out of his mouth soft and muffled from a grieving heart.
In 1984, I had saved a police officer of my village from being killed by the army. I thought then that I was doing my duty.
Will you please tell us about it?
After the Blue Star, the army had been combing the villages of Punjab for terrorists. There was a ban on pillion riding on motorcycles. One day, a police of our village was taking his ailing father on his motorcycle to the hospital. Actually, his father was ailing from addiction to opium. At Nasirke, an army patrol stopped him. The police officer on the motorcycle was in plain clothes. He became nervous when stopped and sped passed the patrol. He came back to the village and tried to hide. But the army patrol traced him down. They tied him up to a tree and started interrogating him. In panic, he lost his speech. When I reached the spot, one soldier was poking his rifle into this stom¬ach. I reflected for a second weighing my thoughts for and against the reckless courage that would be required of me to intervene to save this person. I shouted at the soldiers to stop. It took me some effort and I nearly risked my life to save him.
But now when I try to save an honest and religious woman who is already in jail for her courage of conviction, and her hapless young daughters from being publicly outraged by the Senior Super¬intendent of Police, though only by words more injurious than the actual deed, I am labelled to be a Guru of the terrorists. I am detained and starved. Not even Duryodhanas and Dushashans, the evil incarnations of the Hindu mythological yore, had shown such malevolence as Govind Rams of today are inflicting on our people. May be it will all end in another Mahabharata. But I am not happy at this internecine protest.
Can you tell us whom this police person was you had saved in 1984?
Constable Mohan Singh. He is now attached to the police station in Batala near the Bus stand where Surjit Kaur’s daughters had been detained and harassed.
Ram Narayan Kumar
Ashok Agarwaal
Committee for Information and Initiative on Punjab
