5 min readAmritsarUpdated: Dec 11, 2023 01:29 PM IST
Nineteen-year-old Dalbir Kaur was two months pregnant in 1994 when her husband Sukhpal Singh, a small farmer and priest, was allegedly kidnapped and murdered to claim the bounty on the head of then militant Gurnam Singh Bandala.
The Punjab Police SIT, constituted on the orders of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2019, had booked a suspended IPS officer Paramraj Singh Umranangal along with DSP Jaspal Singh.
Jaspal Singh was honoured with the President’s Police Medal for allegedly producing the body of Sukhpal Singh as that of the wanted militant Gurnam Singh Bandala, who is still alive.
The SIT, after taking a legal opinion from District Attorney (Legal), Ropar, had registered a fresh FIR against the high-profile accused on October 21, 2023, under Sections 166A, 167, 193, 195, 196, 200, 201, 203, 211, 218, 221, 222, 420, 120-B of IPC at Singh Bhagwantpura police station in Ropar.
The kidnapping and murder of Sukhpal Singh were just the start of troubles for his mother Gurbachan Kaur and wife Dalbir Kaur. His son was born only to face the trauma of not having a father, and died at the age of 16.
“This fight is not only for my husband. This fight is also for my mother-in-law who had little hope for justice but still fought. It is also for my son who could never understand why he didn’t have a father like other children. I used to show him my wedding album to convince him that he had a father who went abroad and would come back. But he could never overcome this trauma all his life before his death in an accident at the age of 16,” Dalbir Kaur said.
Dalbir Kaur’s daughter also has no memories of her father as she was also just a year old at the time of the kidnapping and murder.
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Dalbir Kaur came to her maternal village after the death of her son.
“I couldn’t live in that house in village Kala Afghana after the death of my son. Our four-acre land went into the case proceedings. I shifted to my maternal village to avoid slipping into depression,” she said. She also took along her father-in-law to her maternal village Maniwal.
In 1998, she remarried her husband’s younger brother after the family was convinced that Sukhpal Singh was kidnapped and murdered. Sukhpal Singh’s death was officially confirmed only last month when the FIR was registered. Dalbir Kaur has a son from the second marriage.
Dalbir Kaur says, “This fight was started by my mother-in-law Gurbachan Kaur. She would sit in the bus at 4.30 am from Batala to reach Chandigarh and then return with no hope, empty-handed. Lawyers cheated her. She fought for 15 years. I started attending the court proceedings after that. Then I got the support of lawyer Pardeep Singh Virk and human rights activists like Col G S Sandhu.”
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She recounts how Gurbachan Kaur was first offered Rs 4 lakh in 2004 to reach a compromise. “Then I was offered Rs 10 lakh. The amount increased to Rs 50 lakh and eventually to Rs 1 crore to withdraw the petition. But nothing can compensate for my loss or the life that I lived. My mother-in-law never went to school. I saw her wiping tears whenever she would leave for Chandigarh and she would return with despair written all over her face. She had little hope of getting justice but she soldiered on. Her life inspired me to continue the fight. It would have been a big relief if this FIR was registered when she was alive. I know that it is just the start of the next phase of the fight to get justice,” says Dalbir Kaur, who has studied only till seventh grade.
When a convict in kidnapping and forced disappearance case gave clean chit to accused in Sukhpal Singh case
Dalbir Kaur filed the first petition at the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2012 and then in 2013. The court issued a notice on her petition to the state government, and the Punjab Police appointed then IPS IGP Balkar Singh Sidhu as the head of the SIT to probe these allegations. However, Balkar Singh Sidhu was himself facing allegations of kidnapping in the disappearance of one Surjit Singh. The case dating back to 1992 against Balkar Singh was pending in the CBI court as he started investigations in the complaint of Dalbir Kaur. Later, in 2022, Balkar Singh was convicted of the kidnapping and disappearance of Surjit Singh. The CBI investigation found that Surjit Singh was tortured after being picked up from his home quite like Sukhpal Singh.
Dalbir Kaur’s lawyer Pardeep Singh Virk alleges, “Sumedh Singh Saini was the DGP when the SIT was constituted to probe the murder of Sukhpal Singh. Saini appointed Balkar Singh, then accused in a similar case, to probe the case against Umranangal. We were not surprised that Balkar Singh gave a clean chit to Umranangal and other accused.”
