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Shaheed
Bhai Rachpal Singh Bhola
 A
lieutenant-general in the KCF. At one time described as the best guerrilla they
had found so far. Ancestral village, Tur, District Amritsar. Background: born
1968. They are a family of three brothers, of which he is the youngest. He has
three sisters, two of whom are married. One brother is in Germany, and one is
farming. He attended five classes at the village school.
When
I was young I learnt much about the Singhs from the dhadhi darbars.
I fell in love with the Singhs. I also listened to Sant Jarnail Singh's
speeches, although I went to Darbar Sahib only after its attack.
What were the effects of the 1984
invasion of Darbar Sahib on you?
When
one's brothers and sisters [he means fellow Sikhs] are killed, it does affect
one! One becomes restless and can no longer sit at home in peace. It was such a
sad thing that happened. My chachca [father's younger brother] had been with
Bhindranwale's people. He was twenty-five when he was martyred. Hindus
celebrated the attack on Darbar Sahib and were distributing sweets. Chacha
attacked them and he in turn was attacked by the CRPF. He became a martyr. I had
learnt much about the struggle from him, so shortly after his death I started
getting involved in border activities. While chacha had been alive, I had been
feeding and sheltering his friends. After his death, the police visited our
house many times, as they do in all such other cases, insulting our daughters
and sisters many times and dragging us to police stations. After such insults I
could not just sit around. I left home. When 'our House' was attacked [a
reference to Darbar Sahib] it had made all of us very sad. I went to see it. I
was overwhelmed by grief. Since I left my home the police have incessantly
troubled my family. I went to my sister's. She is married near Khem Karan
(District Amritsar). Her husband's brother would often accompany the Singhs on
their exploits, when he was on leave from the army. On one of these trips he was
killed. He had been giving much secret help, carrying weapons from the border to
the villages, then burying them. Someone informed on him, me and his brother,
and we were all on the run. They were both killed. They were martyred. Now we
cannot sit at home, ever.
After their killing I came to see Zaffarwal. Then I myself started taking goods
across. I have been a lieutenant-general for the past four months and have
twelve area commanders beneath me. I have selected them. Usually they have come
to join us after repeatedly being in prison and tortured. There is nowhere else
for them to go. I started working in Faridkot because of family links there. My
recruits are from nearby villages in Amritsar. They have their own networks of
reliable people on whom they can depend for food. Otherwise if we are not near
homes we know, we simply ask the people for food. They feed us voluntarily. The
local people who feed us give us quite a bit of information on the police and
police pickets. We never take anything from anyone in the villages. No rich
person stays in a village. We pick one of these big wealthy lalas [traders] or
rob the banks. Sometimes we pick them up from their shops during daytime. We get
our money from them very quickly.
Very few police help us in gathering information. The Sikh police are only
concerned with killing us. However, we have close links with some in the Home
Guard. We give them some money from time to time. When they're on guard they'll
help us by stealing weapons. Some join us. There are also some sympathetic
soldiers. However, at the moment there is not much active support coming from
the army, though they say they'll join the struggle when there is a war. We are
not close to urbanite Sikhs. Nevertheless they'll give us information as to who
has what, or tell us when large sums of money are going to be deposited in the
bank. They are sympathetic to the cause. We've got certain homes in towns that
we go to. When we are injured we usually receive treatment at village level. If
we cannot get better there, we approach some city doctors. Some are happy to
treat us and others do it out of fear.
Taken from ikonkaar.blogspot.com |
