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83-yr-old travels from Canada to
tell Indian court
how his son was killed by goons in 1984 pogrom
WSN Network
NEW DELHI: He is
83 now. That is pretty old. In 1984, he was around 60. That is when
blood thirsty mobs descended upon his house, dragged his son
outside, beat him up mercilessly with iron rods and killed him.
Swarn Singh Bhatia and his son Gurbaksh Singh's only fault was that
they were Sikhs.
Three days
later, he started going from pillar to post to file a First
Information Report with the police. He did not know the names of the
killers then. For 23 years, Indian justice dispensing system forgot
about him, just as it had about thousands of similar murders during
the mayhem, not in some remote village, but in the heart of the
capital of the country. Hundreds were burnt to death as mobs led by
Congress leaders grabbed Sikhs on the road and garlanded them with
burning tyres.
"I approached
the police several times but nobody registered my FIR. A year later
I filed an affidavit stating the facts before the Ranganath Mishra
Commission."
Last December,
an Indian court summoned Swarn Singh Bhatia, now living in Canada,
to depose, and at 83-years of age, he came rushing to tell the city
court how his son was murdered by a mob in police presence.
India calls it
riots. The Sikh community knows it as genocide, a pogrom.
 Swarn Singh
Bhatia said the three persons who killed his son included a CRPF
commander. The Central Reserve Police Force is
India's foremost
paramilitary force. Bhatia's son, 32-year-old Gurubaksh Singh, was
dragged by the mob and beaten with iron roads. He died on the spot.
The three accused namely Ishwar Singh, Sajjan Singh and Jagdish
Singh are now out on bail.
Bhatia had
shifted to
Canada soon
after losing his son. Deposing before Additional Session Judge Vinod
Kumar, he told the court that a mob of 300-400 people, armed with
deadly weapons, had attacked his house at Paschim Vihar on 1
November 1984. A police jeep, which passed through the area, did not
care to help them.
Gurubaksh had
allegedly fired with his gun into the air to scare the mob but he
failed to succeed and he was later dragged out of his house and
attacked with iron rods and other weapons, Bhatia said.
"The then SHO in
charge passed through my residence but did not stop the vehicle. At
that time the attack of the mob at my house was in full swing. SHO
Rane was driving the vehicle and some other police persons who were
armed were with him in the jeep. But he did not interfere in the
matter. My house was set afire", Bhatia said in his statement.
Bhatia, who
broke down in the court during his deposition said that he along
with his family even requested the mob with folded hands to allow
them to leave.
"The mob however
started beating us mercilessly and they also started looting our
belongings in our house". His son was dragged by his collar and was
taken outside the house. He was then repeatedly hit by iron rods.
According to the
witness, it was Ishwar, a custom department official, who was
leading the mob.
 Bhatia also
identified the three accused – Ishwar Singh, Sajjan Singh and
Jagdish Singh – before the court and said that although he did not
know them prior to the incident, he could recognize them, when they
came before him. "What was the court doing till know? What was the
police doing all these years? Waiting for Bhatia to go blind so that
he fails to recognize the killers?" said another old man outside the
court premises.
6 February 2008
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