Unheard: Atrocities On Sikh Women in Punjab

A discussion on the atrocities Sikh women suffered in Punjab would not be complete without a discussion on what Sikh widows and their children continue to endure today. They have been forgotten by most in the Panth. Those Singhs that sacrificed their lives for the Sikh Cause must have thought that the Panth would take care of their families after they had been martyred. Sadly, this has not happened. And now, many say that no future generation will be willing to make the same sacrifices seeing the way families that were left behind in this chapter of the Sikh struggle continue to be neglected and live in poverty.

By mid-1992, the Indian Police in Punjab had lost all sense of morality and considered human rights to be a joke. On June 25, 1992, 15-year-old Harpreet Kaur Rano was stopped while riding her bicycle in Amritsar’s Ghio Mandi.

Harpreet Kaur was very interested in the Sikh struggle and used to consider the Sikh fighters her brothers. When the newspaper would print a notice about the Shaheedi and bhog of a Sikh fighter, she would cut out their picture and keep it in her purse.

The police decided to search her purse. When the pictures were found, the excuse to arrest this young Sikh girl was found and she was taken directly to the famous torture center at BR Model School in Amritsar. She was put in the custody of Thanedar Darshan Lal who punished Harpreet Kaur for her “crime”. In that dark torture center, only Vahiguru knows what suffering and brutality Harpreet Kaur faced.

Despite her family’s best efforts to free her, the newspapers reported that Harpreet Kaur along with 3 other “terrorists” had been killed on June 27, 1992 near Sultanvind. Her body was not given to the family. The family went to the cremation grounds at Durgiana Mandir and in one pile of ashes, Harpreet Kaur’s sister recognized a Kara. The two sisters used to wear identical Karas and the ashes were recognized as Harpreet Kaur’s. No justice was ever expected or delivered for this cold-blooded murder.

Bibi Kulbir Kaur Dhami was kept in illegal custody by the Tarn Taran CIA staff for many months from 1993 to 1994. Miraculously, she survived. During that time she saw countless Singhs and Singhnis be tortured and then killed in fake encounters. In her own words, Bibi Kulbir Kaur recounts the final wish of one Bibi who was being taken to her death:

“Surinder Kaur was the principal of a Model School in Tarn Taran. Her school had approximately 400 children enrolled. Her husband was a former soldier and worked in a bank in Amritsar. It was perhaps July 1993 when he was arrested along with his wife and children and brought to the jail for having given shelter [to Sikh fighters]. With her was the son of a Pandit, Ramesh, who had become a Singh and had been arrested with his group [of fighters]. This group was tortured in front of us. They endured this cruelty for about a week and most of the group confessed to having participated in some actions, but this couple, [Bibi Surinder Kaur and her husband] were accused of having given the group shelter only.

Surinder Kaur kept begging that her body not be touched by any male police officer. She was kept with me for eight days in the women’s lockup. In front of me, she was interrogated four times a day. The male police officers would beat her with sticks and use the ghotna. Three or four policemen would stand on the ghotna. I myself saw them drag her around by the chest. This entire interrogation was conducted by SP Operation Khoobi Ram, DSP Gurmit Singh, Inspetor Ram Nath, and SI Tarlochan Singh. They are completely responsible for torturing and killing her (it’s another story that their orders were all coming from the top).

Four members of this group, along with Surinder Kaur’s husband were tortured for a week and then killed in a fake encounter which was reported to then newspapers. One of those was a police officer, Dalbir Singh, who had abandoned his job, but he was apparently spared. All this [the encounter] happened in front of him and he could be a witness.

At around 8pm, the police took Surinder Kaur away from me while beating her. Surinder Kaur was dragged away as she wept and called out my name. They threw her in a car. She was sobbing and screaming her final wish to me, “You have to take care of my child now, look after him, this is your responsibility now.” Surinder Kaur was killed that night. The police officials told me that she cried the entire time in the car and they told her to do paath after which they shot her. When she died, Surinder Kaur was wearing my suit and the police officials teased me that because my suit had gone in my place, I had been spared.”

Bibi Kulbir Kaur Dhami now runs the Gur Aasra Trust for Sikh orphans in Mohali.

The widows of Sikh “terrorists” have suffered terribly in the years since 1993. Widows like 18-year old Jasvir Kaur, who had been married to Sukhdev Singh Sukha of Babbar Khalsa International were forced by their poverty to marry much older men. Many began to do menial work to make ends meet.

The following interview appeared in “The Week”, a well known Indian Magazine on April 19, 1998. Bibi Jasmeet Kaur is a Sikh hero. She was married to Bhai Satnam Singh Sheehna of the Bhindranwala Tiger Force and was involved in the punishing of Comrade Hardev, a depraved police tout who was known to rape and kill with impunity.

Jasmeet Kaur was widowed two years after she married Satnam Singh Sheehna of the Bhindranwale Tiger Force of Khalistan in 1991. She lived underground for years, bore his two children while in hiding and is being tried in murder case. She is active in the Gur Aasra project. Excerpts from an interview:

How have people treated the families of militants after terrorism ended?
People started looking at us with suspicion and hatred. They blamed the terrorists and their families for the harassment by the police. They felt we women could have corrected our husbands. The behaviour of the in-laws was the worst. My parents co-operated with me. So I didn’t have many problems. Yes, I had financial difficulties, and worked for the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee. I did feel orphaned, worried and insecure.

Do you wish the bloody years had not happened?
I cannot regret those years. What has happened cannot be wished away. Today, I have two sons, six and five years. It is difficult to raise them alone. I would prefer not to discuss their whereabouts.

Does being the sons of Sheehna affect them?
I have not told them anything. When they ask me, I tell them their father is in the village. How do I explain things to them? My children don’t know that their father was a militant though they know his real name. I don’t want them to know about him now. I just want them to become responsible citizens and that the society gives them the same respect and dignity as others get.

Any Akali faction with you?
No one is with us now, not even (Simranjeet Singh) Mann. He probably feels that if he speaks up for us, he will never win an election. It is a matter of politics. We do feel abandoned by the community.

How was the scene when your husband was around?
When the movement was on, we were all respected, especially if our intentions were clear. I was a proclaimed offender (PO) even before I got married. While in Khalsa College, Amritsar, I was annoyed at the attack on the Golden Temple. My links with the militant movement grew as did my desire for revenge. I was in the AISSF and then with the BTFK. I was involved in the murder of Comrade Hardev Singh, and was in jail for a year, in Amritsar.

After marriage I became PO again and was arrested and later bailed out. In 1995, I was arrested in Gurdaspur, where there was a case against me. The police would have hounded every family I stayed with. So till January 1996 I was in jail and when I was released, I decided not to be a PO because I had children to raise. I decided to attend the court hearings and to work. I can’t say I returned to the mainstream, but can’t even say I have given up the movement…that is in my blood by now. It is another matter that I have decided not to lift a gun, but will fight politically. Now this itself is a fight to collect all these people under one roof. People ask us why we are here, and we tell them. That is also part of the fight.

What problems did you face in raising your sons?
It was very difficult to get birth certificates for my children. All of us women underground used to get admitted under fake names in hospitals. But I arranged it somehow. I cannot count how many children were born underground, but many were. Kulbir Kaur Dhami’s child was born in the jail. We also did not not tell the schools that the child’s father was a terrorist?

Any emotional disturbances among the children?
Plenty. Call any child and discuss it, and we will have a tough time consoling them. These kids have seen their fathers being dragged away by the hair. They often get up in the middle of their sleep, screaming “hai mere pappa ko maar diya (they have killed my father)”. They are all small kids who have seen raw violence. So we try not to remind them of it. Most of the small children have not been told that their fathers are dead. Now some of the older ones are learning from their elders. We cannot hide it for all times. They miss their fathers, but they are not old enough to realise that. They don’t know of terrorists. The elder ones have some idea, which they don’t want to talk about. Even if we want to talk to them, explain and correct the picture, they say that we are wrong…that they have seen their fathers fighting for dharam. Why then should we create a bad picture of our husbands in their minds?

Do the children know about Khalistan, what it was all about?
No. We will tell them clearly what it was all about when they grow up. If we tell them now, we don’t know how it will affect them. We want them to be involved in constructive work so that they forget their old trauma. We want them to study, play and be happy.

What Can You Do?

The Sikh widows and children left behind need us. The Singhs that died did their part and it’s now up to us to do ours. We must make sure that those left behind are not suffering and living in poverty.

The best thing we can do is to visit these families and help them in the way they need it most. Establishing contact with them directly.

If you don’t know of any way to do this, helping institutions that support these families is also a good option. Two institutions that are doing this are the Dharam Singh Khalsa Trust and Gur Aasra Trust. Their links are:

http://www.khalsatrust.com and http://www.guraasra.com or http://www.guraasra.org.

Please support them in their mission. Our Brothers and sisters need us now. We have let them down for much too long as it is.

By Bhai Balpreet Singh.