Punjab Police Officers to finally be sentenced for “fake encounters” murders, 30 years after Sikh men killed

Update: Both officers received life sentences.

After 30 years two Punjab Police Officers will finally be sentenced TODAY (16th August) for a triple murder that was part of the India’s #SikhGenocide “fake encounters” massacres, which saw countless Sikhs murdered by police mainly from 1984-95.

Kishan Singh and Tarsem Lal have evaded any form of justice since 1992, when they murdered three Sikh men – Sahib Singh, Dalbir Singh and Balwinder Singh – after arresting them. The two officers, along with a third officer Rajinder Singh who died before the convictions came, took the Sikh men to a police station and then claimed they were shot dead in a crossfire during a shootout between a group that had attempted to free them from the police.

All evidence pointed at the three Sikh men being executed by the officers, whilst a fourth murdered man during the incident – Balwinder Singh – was also believed to have been killed by the officers, although the officers managed to evade being charged for his murder. Yet, police only registered the crime in 1997, after years of the families of the men persisting in their pursuit for convictions against the officers, who were openly known to have carried out the killings with the complicity of approximately 20 other officers at the Mehta Police Station in Amritsar (Punjab). The bodies of all four murdered Sikh men were illegally cremated by the officers, which was the standard practice of Punjab Police at the time.

The Indian State at the time was using police to massacre Sikhs to stem dissent and activism against the government’s decades long anti-Sikh actions. Many killed were often just picked randomly, with children and youngsters not exempt from the fatal savagery being practiced by police under government orders. Whilst convictions against the officers that carried this out have become more common in recent years, many Sikhs still feel there is no form of justice available after so long since the murders.

Officers Kishan Singh, Tarsem Lal and Rajinder Singh were allowed to remain free whilst the families of the men pursued their conviction, with the case only going to trial in 2006 and the officers only required to attend court on some occasions. In recent years the Punjab Disappeared team headed by India Supreme Court Barrister Satnam Singh, who moved to India from the UK to practice law, helped get progress on the case, leading to the conviction of the officers on 12th August (last week).

People across the world will be watching the outcome of the sentencing closely, as the pursuit of some form of punishment against such officers that murdered countless Sikhs continues.