Thirty-five years after a young Sikh man named Baljit Singh vanished without a trace from the custody of the Chabal Police Station in Punjab, a special CBI court in Mohali has delivered a long-awaited final verdict. Former Punjab Police constable Kashmir Singh has been sentenced to five years of rigorous imprisonment, closing a dark chapter that began during the height of the state's militancy era.

The wheel of justice moved slowly but surely for the family. The other accused individuals in this harrowing case—then Station House Officer (SHO) Suba Singh, Ravel Singh, and Dalbir Singh—were all convicted previously in 2023. Kashmir Singh, however, managed to evade the law, spending 15 years on the run as a fugitive before his eventual arrest in 2025. Special Judicial Magistrate Karanvir Singh Maju convicted Kashmir Singh on grave charges, finding him guilty of criminal conspiracy, abduction, wrongful confinement, and causing hurt to extract information.

Kashmir Singh, who is now 56 years old, received a five-year sentence under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Acknowledging the gravity of the abuse of power, the court also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 and firmly rejected his request for probation.

The Genesis of a Custodial Nightmare

The legal saga stems from the quiet village of Mallowal Santa in Punjab's Tarn Taran district, the home of Baljit Singh. According to the detailed judgment, on August 7, 1991, Baljit and his brother, Paramjit Singh, boarded a local bus to Chabal with a mundane chore in mind: purchasing manure for their fields.

Their lives changed forever the moment they stepped off the vehicle. When they got down at the Chabal bus stand at around 10 am, a team from the Chabal Police Station pulled up abruptly in an unnumbered blue Maruti Gypsy.

Paramjit later informed the court of the exact setup inside that vehicle, testifying that the blue Gypsy was driven by police official Ravel Singh. Seated inside were then SHO Suba Singh, Dalbir Singh, Kashmir Singh, and two other unidentified police personnel. In a swift, aggressive move, Suba Singh caught Baljit by the neck and forced him into the Gypsy, speeding away toward the Chabal Police Station.

An independent witness named Anoop Singh, who later became the respected sarpanch of Kambo village, also informed the court that he personally saw the police personnel take Baljit into custody. Recognizing the gravity of what he witnessed, Anoop later informed Baljit's family of the abduction.

Despite the public nature of the seizure, no formal arrest was ever recorded by the authorities. During its subsequent thorough investigation, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) discovered a stunning truth: Baljit was neither an accused nor a wanted person in any existing police case. The prosecution revealed that the police had locked Baljit up based on nothing more than flimsy, unverified allegations of snatching a woman’s earrings at the bus stand, using it as a ruse to illegally interrogate him and extract the names of local militants possessing firearms.

Ten Days of Secret, Illegal Confinement

For ten agonizing days, Baljit remained trapped in illegal custody. According to the prosecution, he was kept hidden away in the lock-up at Chabal Police Station from August 7 to August 16, 1991. He was never produced before a local magistrate, and his detention was scrubbed entirely from the official station records.

Refusing to let him go quietly, Baljit’s father, Hari Singh, alongside his brothers Paramjit, Gurbhag, and Dilbagh, repeatedly visited the police station. Desperate to keep him sustained, they brought him food, tea, and fresh clothes. Sympathetic villagers accompanied them on several of these anxious trips, but the public was strictly barred from entering. Only Baljit’s father and closest relatives were occasionally granted short, supervised meetings with him.

During this period, Baljit’s brother Gurbhag Singh was serving his country as a Lance Naik in the Indian Army, stationed at Pathankot. Upon receiving the distressing news of his brother's sudden detention, he took immediate emergency leave and rushed back home. Gurbhag managed to meet Baljit at the police station between August 9 and August 11. Trying to placate the soldier, SHO Suba Singh told him that Baljit had been detained only for routine questioning and would be released soon.

On August 15, Bassan Singh, the brother of Baljit’s wife, accompanied Paramjit to the police station. Peering into the dim lock-up, Bassan saw a visibly distressed Baljit. Bassan later recalled that Baljit pleaded with them, asking the family to get him released. It was the last time any member of the family would ever see him alive.

Signs of Severe Custodial Torture

As the days progressed, the family noticed terrifying changes in Baljit's physical state. Relatives testified that there were highly visible, brutal injuries all over his body. Dilbagh Singh informed the court that there were fresh injury marks on his brother’s body and that police personnel had severely beaten him during his confinement.

The prosecution argued successfully that the police team systematically tortured Baljit to force a confession regarding the earrings-snatching incident and to beat information out of him regarding local militants. This was backed by independent testimony from Surjit Singh, alias Fauji—another civilian who was being held illegally at the station at the exact same time—who stated clearly that Baljit was among the secret detainees and was frequently beaten by police officials.

The scale of the illegal operations at the station was massive. According to the CBI's findings, the station operated two distinct lock-ups, cramming 20 to 25 helpless people into each room without any legal record. Shingara Singh, a man who happened to be legally arrested in a separate Arms Act and TADA case on August 16, 1991, also spoke out in court about the staggeringly large number of undocumented detainees he witnessed inside.

Paramjit recalled a chilling detail from his final visits: Baljit was terrified, whispering that he feared the policemen would eventually take him out of the station under the cover of darkness and kill him. Desperate for a peaceful resolution, the family chose to rely on the constant, empty assurances of the police that he would walk free once the questioning concluded.

A Sudden Disappearance and Camouflage

The dread turned into reality on August 17. When Paramjit walked into the police station that morning, he looked into the lock-up and found it empty. Baljit was gone.

When the frantic family demanded to know where he was, SHO Suba Singh turned on them, categorically denying that the police had ever detained Baljit Singh in the first place. His brazen reply sent shockwaves of alarm through the family, given that multiple relatives had spent the previous ten days openly meeting and feeding Baljit inside that very building.

Surjit Singh provided a critical clue in his official statement, noting that Suba Singh and a few other officials took Baljit away one day, and he was never brought back. Despite decades of tireless searching and legal battles by the broken family, Baljit’s final resting place or whereabouts were never established.

To make matters worse, the police actively tried to terrorize the family into dropping their pursuit of the truth. Paramjit was targeted ruthlessly, being illegally detained several times throughout 1991 and 1992. He informed the court that he was severely interrogated and tortured by the exact same group: Suba Singh, Dalbir Singh, Ravel Singh, and Kashmir Singh. He was only released and spared a similar fate after Indian Army authorities forcefully intervened on his behalf.

The Army and Civil Bureaucracy Intervene

Because Gurbhag Singh was an active soldier serving with the prestigious 22 Punjab Regiment, he took the unusual step of approaching his Commanding Officer, Colonel Ravinder Singh, pleading for institutional backing. Recognizing the injustice, the officer wrote several urgent, formal letters to military, police, and civil authorities to trace the missing civilian.

The official court record preserves a paper trail of these desperate inquiries, including formal communications dated August 27, September 11, October 31, and November 14, 1991. The civilian administration tried to help as well; the Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar wrote a pointed letter to the Senior Superintendent of Police in Tarn Taran on November 18, 1991, followed by another strict communication in January 1992.

Every single one of these official inquiries was met with stonewalling or silence from the local police. Years later, as the case dragged on, the CBI even resorted to publishing Baljit’s photograph publicly in The Tribune on February 12, 2007, and in the Jalandhar Kesari on February 14, 2007. No leads ever materialized from the public.

A Wife's Lonely Fight in the High Court

Faced with a wall of silence, Baljit's young wife, Balbir Kaur, decided to take the battle to the highest legal authority in the region. In 1996, she filed a Criminal Writ Petition before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, seeking a writ of habeas corpus to force the state to produce her missing husband.

The legal petition boldly named senior government and police officials, identifying Suba Singh, Dalbir Singh, Ravel Singh, and Kashmir Singh as the perpetrators. It laid out the agonizingly familiar facts: the policemen had snatched Baljit from the Chabal bus stand, kept him locked up like an animal for ten days, and subsequently wiped away all evidence of his existence.

The legal system moved at a crawl. On April 6, 2005—a full nine years after Balbir Kaur first filed her petition—the High Court finally directed the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) of Amritsar to conduct a formal inquiry into whether Baljit had been taken away by Suba Singh and Dalbir Singh on that fateful August morning.

The CJM submitted an inquiry report on December 14, 2005, but the High Court found it insufficient. Sensing a deeper cover-up, the High Court stripped the local police of any oversight and officially entrusted the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on January 27, 2006.

The Deep-Dive CBI Investigation

Stepping in with full federal authority, the CBI officially registered the case on March 20, 2006. Investigators meticulously rebuilt the 15-year-old case file, recording fresh statements from Baljit’s aging relatives, local villagers, former secret detainees, Army officers, and police personnel. They gathered the original writ petition, the CJM inquiry report, old police posting logs, and the historical letters sent by the Army and civil authorities.

The federal agency arrived at an unshakeable conclusion: Baljit had been picked up from a public bus stand, illegally confined for ten days, and tortured brutally to extract a false confession and names of militants. His arrest was completely off the books, and he was entirely innocent of any crimes.

The CBI established that Suba Singh was the active SHO, while Dalbir Singh was serving as the additional SHO at the Chabal Police Station during that specific week. On April 26, 2007, the agency filed a formal charge sheet against them under Sections 120-B, 365, 344, and 330 of the IPC.

Interestingly, Kashmir Singh and Ravel Singh were not part of that initial charge sheet. The investigating officer explained that Kashmir’s identity could not be firmly verified at first because no Head Constable by that exact name appeared in the local station's posting records. Paramjit had read the name "Kashmir Singh" directly off the policeman’s uniform during the abduction but did not personally know the man's rank.

However, as the trial progressed, overwhelming oral and circumstantial evidence placed both Ravel Singh and Kashmir Singh directly at the crime scene. On November 19, 2009, the court exercised its powers under Section 319 of the CrPC, summoning both men to stand trial as additional accused.

Convictions and a Bittersweet Victory

Ravel Singh appeared in court and faced trial alongside his former bosses, Suba Singh and Dalbir Singh. On March 29, 2023, the special CBI court handed down a historic judgment, convicting all three of criminal conspiracy, abduction, wrongful confinement, and causing hurt to obtain information, sentencing them to five years of rigorous imprisonment.

The court ruled unequivocally that Baljit was abducted from a public transport hub, held without an ounce of legal authority, and beaten to extract information as part of a coordinated criminal conspiracy.

Tragically, the woman who had kept the flame of justice alive for decades did not live to see her vindication. Balbir Kaur passed away on May 6, 2022, nearly a year before the landmark judgment was delivered.

Tracking Down the Evasive Kashmir Singh

While his co-conspirators went to jail in 2023, Kashmir Singh remained the final missing piece of the puzzle. The prosecution successfully demonstrated that he was a vital part of the physical squad that took Baljit away. Paramjit identified him clearly in open court as one of the key policemen waiting inside the Gypsy when Suba Singh grabbed Baljit by the neck.

Furthermore, Baljit’s brothers placed Kashmir directly inside the Chabal Police Station during the ten days of illegal detention. Gurbhag testified that Kashmir was one of the officers who repeatedly lied to the family, telling them Baljit was just being questioned and would be home soon. Dilbagh similarly swore under oath that he saw Kashmir roaming the station while he was trying to deliver food and clean clothes to his suffering brother.

To anchor these eyewitness accounts, the prosecution produced ironclad historical posting records. Former police officer Manmohan Singh proved a list showing that Constable Kashmir Singh, bearing belt number 3956/TT, was indeed actively posted at the Chabal Police Station in August 1991. The records further revealed that he was dismissed from service in October 2005 for unrelated misconduct.

The court noted that the CBI’s initial confusion occurred because the family remembered him acting with the authority of a "Head Constable," whereas the official books listed him as a "Constable." The court held that the solid eyewitness identifications paired with the official belt number firmly established his identity and deep involvement.

Fifteen Years as a Proclaimed Offender

Following his formal court summons in November 2009, Kashmir Singh chose to flee rather than face the law. For over a decade and a half, non-bailable warrants returned unexecuted. In a bid to shield him, his own father told a serving constable that Kashmir no longer lived at the family address and his whereabouts were unknown.

The law officially declared him a Proclaimed Offender on July 21, 2010. Displaying complete contempt for the judiciary, Kashmir neither challenged the summoning order nor the fugitive status, refusing to surrender.

His luck finally ran out on November 12, 2025, when a specialized CBI team tracked him down, handcuffed him, and produced him before the court. He was thrown into judicial custody, and formal charges were framed against him on March 2nd, 2026, triggering a separate, fast-tracked trial.

The Court Demolishes the Defence

During the trial, the CBI examined 12 key witnesses. Kashmir maintained a blanket denial of all charges, arguing weakly that because the agency did not include him in the original 2007 charge sheet, he should be absolved. His defense lawyer also attempted to pick apart the witness identifications, arguing that the lack of a formal test identification parade right after the crime invalidated the family's testimony.

The court completely rejected this line of defense. The judge pointed out that a test identification parade was impossible because Kashmir had actively refused to join the investigation, chose to remain a fugitive throughout the main trial, and only appeared because he was forcibly captured. Furthermore, Kashmir failed to produce any evidence to disprove the official posting record or show that his belt number was anything other than 3956/TT. Sensing defeat, the defense closed its arguments without calling a single witness to the stand.

A Plea for Leniency Flatly Rejected

In a final attempt to avoid hard labor, Kashmir’s counsel pleaded for mercy during the sentencing phase. He argued that Kashmir was an aging, first-time offender with no prior formal criminal convictions, requesting that he be released on simple probation.

The CBI's prosecuting team fiercely opposed any such leniency. They reminded the court of the human toll of the crime: Baljit’s abrupt disappearance left a dependent wife and four minor children completely impoverished, stripped of their sole breadwinner overnight. The prosecution argued that Kashmir was a uniform-wearing public servant entrusted with protecting citizens, yet he actively chose to participate in the illegal kidnapping and torture of an innocent man.

The court agreed heavily with the prosecution, describing the actions of the police team as barbaric and noting that a lenient sentence for such an abuse of power would send a toxic message to society. It sentenced Kashmir to five years of rigorous imprisonment under Section 365, three years under Section 344, three years under Section 330, and two years for criminal conspiracy. All sentences will run concurrently, bringing a long overdue sense of legal closure to a 35-year-old scar.

Context: The Shadow of the Insurgency

To fully understand the gravity of this case, one must look at the turbulent era in which it unfolded. When Baljit Singh was picked up in August 1991, Punjab was navigating one of the bloodiest and most terrifying phases of its modern history, caught in the grip of a brutal Khalistani insurgency.

Terrorist organizations routinely carried out high-profile assassinations, synchronized bombings, and indiscriminate attacks on civilians, police officers, journalists, and political leaders who stood against secessionism. Public transport was a frequent theater of terror: innocent Hindu passengers were systematically separated from others on buses and trains and executed, while Sikhs who supported the Indian state or protected their neighbors were targeted as traitors. The violence was deliberately calibrated to tear apart the communal fabric holding Hindus and Sikhs together.

High-profile critics of the movement were marked for death. Veteran journalist and Hind Samachar Group founder Lala Jagat Narain, an outspoken voice against the separatists, was shot dead near Ludhiana on September 9, 1981. Less than three years later, on May 12, 1984, terrorists assassinated his son, Ramesh Chander, who had bravely continued the newspaper's editorial campaign against the militancy. Gunmen opened fire on him at a crowded junction in Jalandhar. The terror campaign against the press was relentless; several other editors, printing press employees, and local newspaper hawkers associated with the media house were murdered over the years.

Public transport massacres became a recurring horror. In October 1983, militants intercepted a passenger bus near Dhilwan, singled out six Hindu passengers, and shot them. In November 1986, automatic weapon fire claimed the lives of 24 Hindu passengers forced off a bus. On July 6, 1987, armed terrorists ambushed a Haryana Roadways bus traveling from Chandigarh to Rishikesh near Lalru. They blocked both ends of the vehicle and opened fire into the crowded interior, slaughtering 38 passengers, including women and children, and leaving 30 others wounded.

Religious and educational institutions provided no sanctuary. On June 25, 1989, gunmen attacked an RSS shakha gathering at Jawahar Lal Nehru Park in Moga, killing 21 workers on the spot. A secondary bomb hidden in the park exploded shortly after, targeting rescuers and bringing the total death toll to 25, with another 31 injured. In November of that same year, terrorists breached the campus of Thapar Engineering College in Patiala during a youth festival, opening fire on sleeping students inside their hostel rooms, killing 19 young visitors from Kurukshetra and Kanpur.

The year 1990 brought the infamous Abohar Goli Kand. On March 7, 1990, a hit squad entered the crowded Sadar Bazaar in the border town of Abohar, firing indiscriminately into crowds of shoppers and merchants, leaving 32 dead after many succumbed to wounds in local hospitals.

The bloodshed reached a fever pitch in 1991, the exact year Baljit Singh disappeared. On June 15, 1991, terrorists targeted two separate passenger trains near Ludhiana, spraying bullets inside the compartments and killing 74 passengers according to Union Home Ministry records. On December 26 of that same year, another passenger train traveling from Ludhiana toward Ferozepur was ambushed, resulting in the execution-style killing of 49 passengers.

Even the highest offices were not safe. Chief Minister Beant Singh, whose administration spearheaded the aggressive security crackdown that eventually broke the back of the militancy, was assassinated on August 31, 1995, in a massive suicide bombing outside the Punjab and Haryana Civil Secretariat in Chandigarh, an explosion that claimed 17 lives.

This was the chaotic, high-pressure environment in which the Punjab Police operated when Baljit Singh was pulled into the blue Maruti Gypsy. The sheer volume of terror explains the immense pressure resting on the shoulders of the security forces at the time. It does not, however, validate or legalise an unrecorded arrest, the use of third-degree custodial torture, or the permanent disappearance of an innocent citizen who had no ties to the conflict.