Scribe who brought Pilibhit story to light

It has been more than 25 years, but that morning is clearly etched in the memory of Pilibhit Hindi daily Amar Ujala’s bureau chief Vishwamitra Tandon, as if it had happened yesterday. Questioning the police version, he probed deeper to uncover the real story of the three fake police encounters and the fourth one which till date has not been officially admitted. Quitting journalism in 2005 after resigning from his job, Tandon now lives in Pilibhit. He spoke to Shahira Naim about the CBI court judgment on the Pilibhit fake encounter.

How did it all start?

It was the morning of July 13, 1991, when a representative of Madhotanda village in Puranpur subdivision in Pilibhit, Islamuddin Khan, rushed to my house with the information that the police had killed several Sikh youths in a fake encounter. Before I could confirm the news from my sources, I was told that Pilibhit Superintendent of Police RD Tripathi had called mediapersons to his residence at 11 am.

What did the police have to say officially?

The SP’s face said it all. He was in high spirits. Unusually warm, he enthusiastically narrated what he described as a historic achievement by the state police. He said on the night of July 12 the police had killed 10 dreaded terrorists in three encounters.  Some of us congratulated him as the Terai region those days was in the grip of terrorism, a Punjab spillover. But aware of the UP police’s working, the daredevilry seemed hard to accept. It was strange that not a single policeman was injured in the encounters. I sought the names and addresses of those killed from the SP on the plea that I needed these for my news story.

When I returned from the press briefing, Islamuddin was still waiting for me in my office  By now another source had informed me that a Sikh family from Amariya subdivision in Puranpur, who was in the same bus as the Sikh youths who were later killed, had been offloaded and sent home. He was said to be a witness to the entire sequence of events.

So did he help you in the breakthrough?

Far from it. In the sultry July heat, Islamuddin drove me to that Sikh family’s house in Amariya on his motorcycle. Upon reaching there, we found them working in their fields. When we asked them about the incident, they bluntly told us that we had been misled. Such was the police terror. Disappointed, we were returning when a Sikh youth stopped us. He told us that one of the slain youths, Narender, was dragged out of the bus, the police ignoring his mother’s protest. He said she would tell us the truth as she now had nothing to lose.

We reached Pistaur village where Narender’s mother Joginder Kaur was sitting on a charpoy. She had been crying. She said the Amariya family was a witness to the incident but may not have spoken for fear of the police. We went back to the family. This time they agreed to tell all. We were told the Sikh youths were offloaded, their hands tied, and driven away in a vehicle and later killed deep in the jungles. 

So you had your story with you?

I did but it was difficult to keep it exclusive. I went straight to Bareilly and spoke to my editor. He immediately sent me to the then regional desk in-charge Sunil Shah. We discussed how to publish the story while protecting our sources as well as me. It was too late. So it was decided that the story would be carried the next day. I returned to Pilibhit and travelled 57 km to Bareilly the next day. It was decided that the story would be a first-person account, titled ‘My son was killed in a fake encounter’. From here started the long struggle for justice.

Now that the 47 policemen have been sentenced to life, how do you feel?

I am happy for the victims’ families. But I regret the manner in which high officials have gone scot free. Could such an exercise by several police stations have been executed without the knowledge of senior officials right up to the DGP level? Neither the then DGP Prakash Singh or the SP, who so joyously claimed to have eliminated terrorists, or the Additional SP have been even reprimanded.

Did you keep in touch with any of the families during the trial?

I knew the family of victim Talwinder  Singh of Navadia Banki village.The officials never admitted to have  killed him. When gaps in the police version started emerging during the early stage of the investigation, the Supreme Court made the UP Police pay Rs 5 lakh as compensation to Talwinder’s parents, but they had migrated to Canada by then. Talwinder’s sister Roopinder Kaur still lives here.