A. S. I. Dalbeera

Dalbeera was a resident of village Pakhokay, Taran Taaran. After receiving education from Khadur Sahib and Sports College in Jalandhar, he joined the police. Due to his immoral character he established relations with drug smugglers and made huge amount of money. After a while, he was fired from his job for murdering someone in his drug business. All of this happened in February, 1984. Subsequently, he started hanging around with Sikh freedom fighters and became very close to them after Operation Blue Star.

When the Indian government started forming criminal groups known as Black Cats, Dalbeera was on the top of hiring list. He was not only a mastered criminal but also an ex-police officer who knew all about torture and police brutality. This made him one of the most qualified criminal for the police job. So he was hired back to his post in 1986. He was initially hired under the command of S.S.P. Izhaar Alam and later on worked for S.S.P. Seetal Daas. After he became an experienced criminal he was appointed a leader of a Cat group consisting of about 10 criminals.

Along with his drug smuggling business he became successful in killing many of the top Sikh fighters such as Bhai Paramjit Singh from Taran Taaran, Bhai Ranjit Singh and Bhai Balwinder Singh and picked up Bhai Gurbachan Singh from Mohali and turned him in to the police. His criminal activities turned him into a ruthless killer. He killed Bhai Sukhwinder Singh and Bhai Harinder Singh, companions of Bhai Harjinder Singh Ji Jindha, by shooting them in the back of their heads. It was the same Sikhs who had saved his life couple of years earlier. While he was firing the bullets, one of the police groups was patrolling the area. Upon hearing the fire shots the police showed up and thought Dalbeera was just a regular day killer who was killing for robbery. The police chased after him and fired some shots but no bullet touched Dalbeera. He quickly ran into the house of Julio Ribiero who called the press conference the very next day and made a statement that two terrorists had been killed in a police encounter.

After this incident Dalbeera became the favorite of Ribiero. He was promoted and made an A.S.I. He was given a police car and couple of bodyguards. He was free from reporting to any police station. Dalbeera then increased his activities and started to rob banks, rich people and raping women. He bought land in every major city of Punjab and built his mansions. He was not stopped by any police officer because he used to share his looted wealth with them. One time, he kidnapped some businessmen who were from Jammu and ransomed them for millions of rupees and gold. He kept it all secret from other police officers. Eventually the police officials found out and S.S.P Seetal Das called Dalbeera in his office. S.P. Baldev Brar was there as well. When they asked about the money and gold Dalbeera refused to acknowledge the happenings of the incident. After intense argument Dalbeera pulled out his pistol and killed both police officers. Hearing the sounds of the bullets the guardsmen came running inside and shot Dalbeera dead. Three main officers died at the same time which was a big loss to the government. The news of their death spread all around in Punjab and their misdeeds were exposed to the public. While talking to the news editor of India Today, Ribiero stated:

Death of Dalbeera is a great loss that has done irreplaceable damage to us. Had the two officers not died with him, our activities wouldn’t have been exposed to the public. (India Today, 1988)

Source: Indian Terrorism on the land of Punjab by Baljit Singh Khalsa

Translated by SikhFreedom