Hardeep Singh (left) and Balkar Singh, brothers of deceased Lakhwinder Sing. (Inset) Jaswant Kaur.

PILIBHIT: Jaswant Kaur was 40 when her husband Narender Singh was picked up along with 10 other Sikh men from a bus in Pilibhit and killed in cold blood after an elaborate story about an encounter with “Punjabi militants". Twenty-five years later, as a special CBI court held 47 cops guilty of the killings — the sentence will be announced on April 4 — there is no joy at the verdict, just sadness and a sense of futility among the families of those murdered.

“There's no happiness in our hearts," said Jaswant, frail and bent, on Saturday. "Those dead will not come back to ease our difficulties. My mother-in-law went to a court in Lucknow from Pilibhit, travelling 500 km each time, for 20 years. She is dead now and I am 65 years old. Had she been alive, perhaps I would have felt something. Too much time has gone seeking justice."

Kaur, who lives in Pastaur village under Amaria block of Pilibhit district, still can't understand how the tragedy was thrust upon them by “men entrusted with our well-being and security".

It was in July 1991, when Narender — a farmer, who was 40 then, was on a pilgrimage to Hazur Sahib in Nanded, Maharashtra, that the bus he was in screeched to a halt midway. Next to Narender was his mother Joginder Kaur and 50 others, men, women and children. There was a bunch of cops ahead and they had ordered the vehicle to stop.

Cops whisked away 11 Sikhs from the bus

“I remember the name of the place where it happened. My mother-in-law must have repeated the story in court and at home a million times," Kaur said. "It was near Kachhla Ghat in Badaun (in UP). The policemen forced 11 men, all Sikhs, to get down from the bus and took them away. The other pilgrims were asked to keep their heads down and look at the floor of the bus. Though my mother-in-law reached home by noon, she and the others had no clue what had happened to the men."

In one of the most chilling cases of mass killings as the government fought insurgency in Punjab during the Khalistan movement, fam ilies of the men in faraway Pilibhit would learn the next day from the papers that all 11had been charged with terrorism and "died in gun battle". Kaur added, "Local dailies had published the photographs of 10 men. Their hair was open and all of them looked terrible. My mind still can’t erase images from that day. We never got to see the bodies and are clueless how the police disposed them. Life was a huge struggle after that. I had to raise three children, who were three, six and 16 at that time."

Sitting hunched in her small house, Kaur said that even if cops suspected that these men were terrorists, they should have interrogated them first. Asked what punishment she wants for the 47 cops who have been found guilty of the crime after all these years, she said, “Unki saja se muje kya fayda milega? Main kisi ka bura nahi chahti. (What will I get from the punishment that is given to them? I wish no ill to anyone). Yes, it will help if the government gives my sons some job. They don't have good education. I could not give them one."

Nearby, there is no celebration in the house of Lakhwinder Singh, who had been killed that day along with Narender and the others. Lakhwinder was only 17 when he died, a student of class X. His elder brother, Balkar Singh, 56, who runs a medical shop in Amaria, 30 km from Pilibhit, said, “As many families who knew each other were going for the pilgrimage, my teenage brother also joined them. He never returned. He was among the 10 dead. There is still no information about the 11th person. Imagine the plight of that family."

Balkar Singh ran from pillar to post demanding a CBI probe into the case. “Policemen threatened me, asked me to forget about it. Still, I kept fighting for justice. But Ilost faith in the system around 10 years back and stopped visiting the court and meeting lawyers. We can't keep doing that all our lives. We have to earn a living, look after those left behind."There is some closure in the case and Balkar Singh feels "this is better than the criminals in uniform" going scottfree. But there is one thing that still rankles and hurts him "very much". Taking a deep breath as if to lift something heavy, Balkar Singh said, "Three of the policemen involved in the fake encounter were my friends. They used to come home often. They knew Lakhwinder was my brother."

