Senior Aam Aadmi Party leader Harvinder Singh Phoolka has sought the intervention of the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi to direct the Ministry of Defence to compile a list of all soldiers who went missing in November 1984, when Sikhs were killed at many places following the assassination of Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, Mr. Phoolka who is a senior lawyer in the Supreme Court, attached a list of about 50 soldiers who were killed brutally. He said while the deceased were officers and jawans of the Army, Navy and Air Force, the Ministry of Defence has not even bothered to ensure that their names were communicated to respective State governments or the Ministry of Home Affairs, to enable their families receive compensation under the schemes for rehabilitation of riot victims.
While accepting that his list was not exhaustive, Mr. Phoolka said most of these names do not even find mention in the list compiled by the Home Ministry. The widows and family members of many of these serving personnel have not received any compensation.
Mr Phoolka presented the case of rifleman Inderjeet Singh of the 4 J&K Regiment, who was posted at Guwahati. He had taken leave to see his wife, Kamaldeep Kaur, and 10-month-old daughter. He was on his way home, when the train he was travelling in was attacked by a mob near Pataudi in Haryana on November 1. Inderjeet Singh managed to save himself by hiding in the fields where someone guided him to a village with a gurdwara and a sizeable Sikh population. Subsequently, he reached Hondh-Chillar village, where a mob attacked the gurdwara and killed 21 Sikhs including Inderjeet. The survivor women in the village did not have any address or details of Inderjeet.
Meanwhile, Kamaldeep Kaur kept waiting for him and wrote many letters to the Army to find out whereabouts of her husband. In the middle of 1985 the Army sent the belongings of Inderjeet Singh and started giving her a pension of Rs 250 per month. While she still had no clue about what had happened to her husband, Kamaldeep Kaur’s pleas with the Punjab Government for a “red card”, which is issued to every riot victim, failed to draw any response. Seven years later, Army paid her an amount of Rs. 60,000 as Inderjeet.s insurance.
In 2011, an engineer posted in Gurgaon, Manvinder Singh Gyaspura, heard about the Hondh-Chillar killings from some of the employees in his company. He went to the village and found ruins of Sikh houses, while all survivors shifted to Punjab. Manvinder, after bringing the killings of Hondh-Chillar to the notice of media and authorities, traced some of the survivors who informed him about the killing of an unknown soldier in their village.
While Manvinder Singh was trying to ascertain the identity of the “unknown soldier”, Kamaldeep Kaur who read the account in a newspaper, approached him with the photograph of Inderjeet. When the survivors of Hond-Chillar identified Inderjeet as the soldier who had come to their village on November 1 and was killed by the mob along with other Sikhs, Kamaldeep filed an application with Justice T. P. Garg Commission of Inquiry appointed by Haryana government to enquire into Hondh-Chillar killings. This commission has also confirmed that Inderjeet Singh was killed in the village.
Mr. Phoolka said that Inderjeet’s daughter, Charanjit Kaur, who is now 30 years old, has completed her course in nursing. While the nation owed an apology to Kamaldeep Kaur, Mr. Phoolka requested Mr. Modi for directions to the relevant department to pay immediate compensation and give a job to Charanjeet Kaur. Kamaldeep lives in Partapgarh village of Batala tehsil in Gurdaspur district.
