Chandigarh: When it comes to encounters, Punjab tops the list.
Branded conveniently as terrorists, hundreds of innocent men fall prey to police bullets during the heydays of terrorism in Punjab.
Several families continue to live with flickering hopes of finding a lost relative.
"Most of the encounters were of those kind. We surrounded them and gave them two options, either surrender, or face our bullets" former DGP of Punjab Police KPS Gill says.
KPS Gill was mastermind of the police campaign that crushed the pro-Khalistan movement in Punjab.
The campaign ran on a principle of zero-tolerance. Police encounters were the norm but sadly, some were fake.
Santosh Kaur lost her son Jagtar to a fake encounter when he was picked up by the Dasuya police in 1991 and killed.
It took Santosh Kaur 10 years to prove that it was a fake encounter.
Inspector Swaran Dass, who killed Jagtar, was sentenced to life imprisonment but only to be pardoned by the Governor.
"After a long battle we had got justice, and now the Governor has pardoned him. We are still fighting in court," Santosh Kaur says.
Kashmira lost his brothers Roshan and Charanjit in the summer of 1989 who was killed in cold blood by the police.
Police claim that Roshan and Charanjit were killed in crossfire during a terrorist attack.
"The police had been seeking a week's remand but the courts gave them just one day's remand, but he was killed within that one day's remand. They did not let us see the body and did his last rites too themselves," Kashmira says.
"With lot of difficulty I have passed these years. I had a tough time bringing up children," wife of Roshan Singh, Jasbir Kaur says.
Grieving mothers, lonely widows and fatherless children are found throughout Punjab.
A grim reminder of what can happen when the law become a law unto itself.
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