The individuals found guilty were involved in two fabricated encounters that took place in 1993. Among them is Bhupinderjit Singh, who held the post of Deputy Superintendent of Police at the time and eventually retired as a Senior Superintendent of Police. Others include Davinder Singh, who was an assistant sub-inspector and later became a DSP before retiring, along with former associate sub-inspector Gulbarg Singh, ex-Inspector Suba Singh, and former Assistant Sub-Inspector Raghbir Singh. These five retired officers of the Punjab Police were recently convicted by a special CBI court in Mohali for their direct involvement in the fake encounters that occurred in Tarn Taran district during that period.
The individuals convicted include former DSP Bhupinderjit Singh, who rose to become SSP, retired ASI Davinder Singh, who attained the rank of DSP, former ASI Gulbarg Singh, former Inspector Suba Singh, and Raghbir Singh, who also served as an Assistant Sub-Inspector. All five were found guilty of crimes associated with fake encounters carried out in 1993.
The investigation revealed that a total of seven men from the village of Rani Vallah, including four who served as Special Police Officers (SPOs), were unlawfully detained by the police, subjected to torture, and ultimately murdered. The court held the retired officers responsible for multiple serious offenses, including criminal conspiracy, deliberate murder, tampering with evidence, and falsification of official records, all under various sections of the Indian Penal Code. Following the judgment, the convicted officers were immediately taken into custody, with the announcement of their sentences expected shortly thereafter.
According to the Central Bureau of Investigation’s findings, the chain of events began when a police team under the leadership of Gurdev Singh—then the station house officer at the Sarhali Police Station—detained SPOs Shinder Singh, Desa Singh, Sukhdev Singh, and two civilians, Balkar Singh and Daljit Singh, on June 27, 1993. These men were forcibly taken from the house of a government contractor, and the CBI’s inquiry later concluded that they were falsely accused of involvement in a robbery.
Further developments on July 2, 1993, saw the Sarhali police lodge a formal complaint against Shinder Singh, Desa Singh, and Sukhdev Singh. The complaint stated that they had fled with weapons issued to them by the government, thereby adding credibility to the fabricated charges.
Then on July 12, 1993, a staged narrative was presented by a police team led by then-DSP Bhupinderjit Singh and Inspector Gurdev Singh. According to their claim, they were transporting a man named Mangal Singh to Gharka village in connection with the alleged robbery case when their convoy came under attack by militants. They reported that a firefight ensued in which four individuals—Mangal Singh, Desa Singh, Shinder Singh, and Balkar Singh—were killed.
However, forensic examination of the weapons recovered from the site, as well as the autopsy reports of the deceased, indicated serious inconsistencies. The post-mortem findings revealed unmistakable signs that the victims had endured physical torture before their deaths. This completely contradicted the official version of events. Moreover, even though these individuals were known and named in police records, their bodies were disposed of in a manner befitting unidentified corpses—they were cremated as unclaimed, the CBI confirmed.
The sequence of extrajudicial actions continued on July 28, 1993, when three more people—Sukhdev Singh, Sarabjit Singh, and Harvinder Singh—were killed in another orchestrated encounter. This incident also involved a police team led by the same officer, DSP Bhupinderjit Singh, according to the investigation’s findings.
This disturbing case was transferred to the CBI by order of the Supreme Court on December 12, 1996, in light of an ongoing probe into widespread illegal cremations of unidentified bodies across Punjab. The CBI formally registered the case in 1999 based on a complaint filed by Narinder Kaur, who was the wife of one of the victims, Shinder Singh.
Over the years of trial and investigation, five additional police officers named as co-accused—Inspector Gurdev Singh, Sub-Inspector Gian Chand, ASI Jagir Singh, and Head Constables Mohinder Singh and Aroor Singh—died before the legal proceedings concluded.
