Pinky’s confessions may help provide justice to Bulara family

Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 7

For 26 years, Harlep Kaur Peerzada has been fighting for justice for the death of her father Prof Rajinderpal Singh Bulara, an alleged militant who is said to have been killed in a police encounter in Khera Bet, Ludhiana on January 26, 1989.

Harlep Kaur, who was 16 years of age at that time, and her mother Rajinder Kaur Bulara, who later became MP from Ludhiana, had disbelieved the police theory and knocked every possible door, but in vain.

Their hopes have been rekindled with the recent revelations by police “cat”-turned-policeman Gurmeet Singh Pinky that he was witness to 50 fake encounters, including that of Bulara.

Pinky remembers the graphic details of how the professor was detained by him from Sector 15, Chandigarh, and handed over to the CIA Ludhiana where a senior officer and two others interrogated Bulara and others.

Pinky claims that his role was only limited to detaining Bulara. He said he later learnt that he was killed in a fake encounter. He has named the police officials to whom he handed over Bulara and the team which allegedly carried out the killing.

“At last someone has spoken about what had happened to him. We always suspected that he was killed in cold blood. Justice eluded us all these years. There is no witness. Pinky has stated on record that he was a witness. I wish he had spoken earlier,” said Harlep Kaur.

Former MP Rajinder Kaur Bulara wants the government to reopen all cases of fake encounters. “They accused him of plotting killings, but my husband never indulged or advocated violence. But even if he had indulged in any such activity, you still can’t kill someone. Where is the law of the land?” she said.

Bulara was a professor with the Department of Horticulture, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana. After his disappearance, students of the university and of other colleges went on a strike. In February, the police claimed that Bulara and others were killed in an encounter.

Harlep Kaur said her father was not a militant, “He was inclined towards the movement, but he favoured peaceful measures. He was depressed after the Operation Bluestar. He was also disturbed when his cousin, an Army officer, was killed in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. He was travelling in a train to Ahmedabad when he was attacked in Delhi. He was wearing his uniform at that time. The killing shook all of us,” she added.