Human Rights
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Case Of Gursewak Singh By Jaswant Singh Gursewak Singh (son of Teja Singh) has been incarcerated for nearly seventeen going on eighteen years as an under trial prisoner in India. He has been found not guilty in all the 52 TADA cases put on him by the Indians and yet he is still not a free man. It seems that because he was inspired by Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, he is still behind prison bars, and his elderly mother has to keep seeing her son in jail to this day. Case Background Gursewak Singh has been languishing in prison for the last seventeen to eighteen years as an under trial and has never been convicted of any cases brought against him. He has had numerous false cases put on him and despite being acquitted by the concerned trial courts, he has spent a major part of his life behind bars. Gursewak Singh was arrested on the 27th April, 1984, by the police officials of the CIA staff, Ludhiana, Punjab. He was in illegal detention for eleven days. On the 8th May 1984 his arrest was formally recorded by the Police Station Rajkot, Ludhiana under FIR. No: 88 of 1984. After the FIR expired Gursewak Singh remained in police custody and was then transferred to the judicial custody in the Security Prison, Nabha, Patiala, Punjab, on 27-5-1984. Gursewak Singh was being implicated on a number of cases which turned out to be ‘false’ because on each case he was acquitted. He was still sent into judicial custody at Central Jail, Tihar, Delhi, and from there he was taken on police custody remand to Rajasthan. While in judicial custody in Rajasthan Gursewak Singh was still being produced before the concerned courts of Punjab for trials of cases that were pending. On one such court appearance Gursewak Singh absconded from police custody whilst being brought from Rajasthan to Punjab in November 1985, when he was 19 years old. Since then Gursewak Singh has been moved from prison to prison and tried numerous times over the seventeen years. On each count he has been found not guilty. Yet he cannot get bail to this day…(as of March 2004) Gursewak Singh has been victimized. The administrative authorities have ensured that he remain behind bars even if he has not been convicted of any case. In 2004 just as it seemed Gursewak Singh would get bail, he is facing an old charge from 1983 on him. When the authorities have already kept this young boy who is now a man, for the better part of seventeen years in jail, could they not have tried him for a case, that now relates to 1983? In those seventeen years? He is currently at Nabha, Patiala, and is visited by his elderly mother. His only crime seems to have known S. Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale in the early 1980's and for having sympathies for the Sikh resistance movement. When known mass murderers like Kishori Lal, who has seven death penalties for his role in the Delhi massacres, can get bail because he needed to find a husband for his daughter; why do Sikhs like Gursewak Singh who have not been found guilty and yet detained for seventeen years, why can they not be free to visit and be with their families? It seems there is a different law for Sikhs and Hindus in India. You can send a prayer of hope, to Gursewak Singh, son of Teja Singh, Nabha Maximum Security Jail, Nabha, Patiala, Punjab, India. You can use another name, if you are concerned about monitoring, do not give your address unless you wished to, all mail is censored and opened, but should get through to address. There was hope towards end of 2003, that Gursewak Singh would at least be granted bail, and an appeal to the Supreme Court of India was being made. Supported by Campaigns by:
Punjab Documentation Center; http://uk.geocities.com/punjabdoccentre/ |
