Sohan Singh

Sohan Singh (32) of Longowal village of Gurdaspur - a small agriculturist had gone with his wife and small daughter to look after the land of his father-in-law who had fallen sick.  "Some army men suddenly came to my father's house when we were sitting down to eat and asked my husband if he was an Amritdhari.  He said he was a religious Sikh.  The army men were abusive, they pulled his beard, opened out his turban and said Sikhs are badmashes, my husband said, "I am a small peasant, it does not matter if people think badly of me." At that those men threw him on the ground and began to beat him badly, and then they dragged him out of house and took him in their jeep." The statement was made by his wife.

Bhajan Pratap Singh of village Tarseka, Amritsar District, who was in the lock-up next to the rooms where Sohan Singh had been put told us what had happened there, "I could hear him cry and ask for water, I think an employee perhaps was going to give him some water when I heard someone abusing him.  "Is he your Sala?"  Others who were in that camp used to hear him shriek and one day everything was quiet.  We came to know that Sohan Singh's eyes had been gouged out and every joint of his body had been broken with steel rods.  Later when his body was handed over to his widow and his elder brother Baldev Singh, they found the eyes were not there, the body was just pulp without joints and it had become unusually long, the Army had handed it over to the S.H.O. Jhandiala District Amritsar, who had entered the case as one of suicide, and before giving the body to them, the police made the widow sign a statement that it was a case of suicide. There was no post-mortem report to prove that the man had died of torture.  Sohan Singh's body was brought to his village Longowal and cremated there.  One began to wonder if India is really a secular State where freedom of worship is allowed to every citizen.

Taken from Report to the Nation: Oppression in Punjab