Four decades on, justice eludes Nakodar firing victims' families
Thirtynine years have passed since extra-judicial killings of four youths had occurred while they were protesting over a sacrilege issue in Nakodar, governments have not done much to ensure justice to their families.
While the parents of Harminder Singh, Baldhir Singh and Jhilman Singh Gorsian have not lived since, Ravinder Singh Littran's father Baldev Singh and mother Baldip Kaur have continued their fight till today and hold events in their memories. They continue to write to the Chief Minister, Governor, President of India, MLAs and MPs on what they call 'Saka Nakodar' but to their dismay, the government has failed to act on the findings of the Justice Gurnam Singh inquiry report.
On February 4, 1986, four unarmed Sikh students in Nakodar had been shot dead. They were seeking a probe into the incident in which miscreants had set afire five saroops of Guru Granth Sahib at Gurdwara Guru Arjan Sahib and Mohalla Guru Nanakpura.
As per the claims of the families, the post-mortems were conducted on the night of February 4–5 and the police cremated all four bodies in a single pyre using kerosene, wrongly declaring them "unclaimed and unidentified." At the time when the alleged atrocity occurred, the SSP, Jalandhar, was Izhar Alam and Darbara Singh Guru was the acting Deputy Commissioner during the tenure of Akali Dal Chief Minister Surjit Singh Barnala.
Baldev Singh said, "I have written to CM Bhagwant Mann eight times on the issue." He gave eight dates, September 25, 2022; January 8, 2023; February 24, 2023; December 10, 2023; January 27, 2024; June 21, 2024; December 10, 2024 and January 8, 2025.
"Till date no action has been taken. While in the Opposition, AAP promised action. But now in power, they have remained silent—just like the previous governments of the Akali Dal-BJP, and Congress. This prolonged inaction has deepened our anguish and our wait for justice. But we will not give up".
He said, "The full report remains undisclosed", and gave a sequence of incidents post the killings, "On February 5, 1986, Finance Minister Balwant Singh Thind announced an inquiry led by retired High Court Justice Gurnam Singh, whose report was submitted to the state government on October 31, 1986. The report should have been tabled in the Assembly for discussion, followed by an Action Taken Report (ATR) within six months. Yet, nearly four decades later, it remains undiscussed and no ATR has been issued. On March 5, 2001, CM Parkash Singh Badal presented part 1 of the report in the Assembly without debate and no perpetrators have been held accountable."
Justice seems increasingly elusive. Baldev Singh launched a sit-in, later joined by MLAs Wadala, Minhas, Thammanwal and Takhat Shri Keshgarh Sahib Jathedar Giani Harcharan Singh Ji Mohalon, demanding a judicial inquiry.
The case got some push after similar incident at Bargari in 2015. The families obtained Part 1 of the Justice Gurnam Singh Commission report with support from AAP leaders HS Phoolka, Kanwar Sandhu, Harpal S Cheema and Kultar S. Sandhwan. This enabled Baldev Singh to petition the Punjab and Haryana High Court, where the state attorney general’s office later revealed that Part 2 of the report had been removed or destroyed from official records. A second petition was sought to investigate this disappearance. A SIT was formed under the SSP, Jalandhar Rural, in May 2023. The SIT was instructed to include Baldev Singh in the investigation and submit a report within a month. However, till date no report has been provided and fresh FIR as was assured has been lodged, alleges the family.
The family has been creating awareness over the incident worldwide holding events in and around California this time.
