Truth Tribe show

Truth Tribe show Empowering South Asian Immigrants| Amplifying Authentic Voices | Uncovering Unfiltered Truth

Some called him Punjab's supercop. Others called him the Butcher of Punjab.K.P.S. Gill was Punjab's police chief from 19...
05/30/2026

Some called him Punjab's supercop. Others called him the Butcher of Punjab.

K.P.S. Gill was Punjab's police chief from 1988 to 1990, then again from 1991 to 1995. Under his watch, Human Rights Watch documented arbitrary detention, torture, extrajudicial ex*****ons, and enforced disappearances of Sikhs.

"Encounter killing" became shorthand for extrajudicial ex*****on. Men were picked up from homes in front of witnesses. Police later denied ever taking them. No arrest memo. No court date. No body returned.

Gill, Human Rights Watch said, backed a system where police were rewarded for killing alleged militants. He argued they should be eliminated rather than merely arrested.

Then came the cremation records. Human rights defender Jaswant Singh Khalra found over 2,000 illegal cremations in Amritsar district alone, with names, ages, and addresses attached to bodies police had listed as unidentified. He went public in January 1995.

On 6 September 1995, Punjab Police abducted Khalra outside his home. Human Rights Watch says he was illegally detained, tortured, and murdered. Eyewitness testimony at the subsequent trial implicated Gill in Khalra's illegal detention and murder. He was never charged.

Later documentation mapped at least 5,301 victims of enforced disappearances or extrajudicial ex*****ons across Punjab.

Many in India still remember Gill as the man who restored Punjab. Major outlets called him the supercop who put a full stop to militancy.

One side sees order. The other sees ash.

The words change depending on who gets to write the final report.

Poll: K.P.S. Gill is celebrated by many as the man who ended Punjab's militancy. Human rights groups documented torture, disappearances, and secret cremations under his watch. How should history remember him?

Before Punjab burned in full public view, politicians were already trying to weaken rivals by turning religion into stra...
05/28/2026

Before Punjab burned in full public view, politicians were already trying to weaken rivals by turning religion into strategy. Zail Singh sits near the center of that story.

Poll: What broke Punjab first?

Punjab, 1992: Beant Singh comes to power through a 23.82% turnout election. Punjab, 1995: he dies in a blast after becom...
05/27/2026

Punjab, 1992: Beant Singh comes to power through a 23.82% turnout election. Punjab, 1995: he dies in a blast after becoming the face of “peace.” In between sits the real story, how politicians, parties, and the state kept using Punjab, while families disappeared into the price of stability.

Poll: What damaged Punjab more?

Punjab did not only suffer from Police & Militants. It suffered from politicians who kept treating the crisis like somet...
05/26/2026

Punjab did not only suffer from Police & Militants. It suffered from politicians who kept treating the crisis like something to manage, exploit, and outplay. Darbara Singh was one of them.

Poll: Who damaged Punjab more: the gunmen or the politicians who kept gambling with the fire?

When they started dragging wives into the war, there are no rules left.This is the story of Gobind Ram.Poll: What define...
05/26/2026

When they started dragging wives into the war, there are no rules left.
This is the story of Gobind Ram.

Poll: What defines a dirty war more?

Julio Ribeiro became one of the most recognisable faces of Punjab’s hardline policing in the 1980s. He survived an assas...
05/23/2026

Julio Ribeiro became one of the most recognisable faces of Punjab’s hardline policing in the 1980s. He survived an assassination attempt in Punjab and remains one of the most debated names from that era.

Poll: How should history remember Julio Ribeiro

Gurmeet Singh Pinky is one of the most controversial names from Punjab’s militancy years.He started as a police informer...
05/22/2026

Gurmeet Singh Pinky is one of the most controversial names from Punjab’s militancy years.
He started as a police informer, became a Punjab Police officer, was later convicted in the murder of Avtar Singh Gola, and then gave interviews claiming that fake encounters and abuses happened inside the system.

Poll: Should stories from insiders like him be?

October 31, 1984. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated. What followed was not spontaneous. The Nanavati Commiss...
05/19/2026

October 31, 1984. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated. What followed was not spontaneous. The Nanavati Commission later cited 2,733 deaths in Delhi alone.

For many Sikh families, the story did not end with the mobs. It continued with the men they believed had led them.

Two names kept returning.

Lalit Maken was a young Congress MP identified in activist material as one of the figures blamed for the anti-Sikh violence. He denied the allegations. On July 31, 1985, he was shot dead at his home in West Delhi. He was 34. His case became something the courts could never fully settle — suspended between accusation, denial, and assassination.

Sajjan Kumar was different. He remained in public life for years even as Sikh survivors continued naming him.

In December 2018, the Delhi High Court convicted him in a 1984 riots case and sentenced him to life imprisonment. BBC called it the most significant conviction to date in the anti-Sikh killings. The court said the accused had benefited from political patronage and that efforts had been made to suppress the cases.

In February 2025, he was sentenced to life imprisonment a second time, for the killings of Jaswant Singh and Tarundeep Singh in Saraswati Vihar on November 1, 1984.

The numbers behind these two names tell the rest of the story. Of 587 FIRs related to the anti-Sikh violence in Delhi, only 28 led to convictions. About 240 were closed as untraced. Roughly 250 ended in acquittal.

That is how a massacre gets buried inside procedure.

Poll: Of 587 FIRs filed after the 1984 anti-Sikh killings in Delhi, only 28 led to convictions. Sajjan Kumar received a life sentence 34 years after the violence. Is that justice?

Before Punjab's story became only about militants and police, there was a man trying to bargain with Delhi instead of bu...
05/16/2026

Before Punjab's story became only about militants and police, there was a man trying to bargain with Delhi instead of burying more sons.

Harchand Singh Longowal. President of the Shiromani Akali Dal. By the early 1980s, one of the most important moderate Sikh voices in Punjab.

In August 1982, he led the Dharam Yudh Morcha  a mass agitation pushing for implementation of Sikh political and constitutional demands linked to the Anandpur Sahib Resolution. He was trying to turn Sikh anger into a political negotiation, not a civil war.

Then came Operation Bluestar in June 1984. The Indian Army entered the Golden Temple complex. Deep trauma across the Sikh world. After Bluestar, every Sikh leader had to answer one question: fight Delhi, negotiate with Delhi, or risk being crushed by both sides.

Longowal chose negotiation.

On July 24, 1985, he signed the Rajiv-Longowal Accord with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The agreement promised movement on Chandigarh, river-water and territorial disputes, rehabilitation, and other major Akali demands.

The accord triggered immediate protests. Critics said he had signed too soon, conceded too much, trusted Delhi too easily.

On August 20, 1985, twenty-seven days after signing, Longowal was shot at Sherpur village in Sangrur district. He died of his injuries. He was 53 years old.

Tribune later noted that most of the accord's promises were never implemented Chandigarh, rehabilitation of Sikh Army deserters, compensation to victims of violence. He died for an agreement Delhi did not carry through.

That is the double wound.

A Sikh leader could survive Delhi's pressure, survive factional politics, survive the chaos of the morcha years, and still be killed by fellow Sikhs for signing a deal. That is how movements begin to consume their own moderates.

Poll: Harchand Singh Longowal signed a peace accord with Delhi in July 1985 and was assassinated 27 days later. Most of what he negotiated was never implemented. How do you see his legacy?

In 2013, a Punjab Police sub-inspector named Surjit Singh went public and said he had killed 83 people in fake encounter...
05/15/2026

In 2013, a Punjab Police sub-inspector named Surjit Singh went public and said he had killed 83 people in fake encounters during the militancy years.

He said he joined the force in 1989 and was deployed as a constable in 1990. After joining, he said senior officers gave him detainees to eliminate. Innocent Sikh youth already in custody, brought to him with orders to kill them regardless of guilt.

He said he was promoted for carrying out these killings and eventually became SHO of Mehta police station. Fake encounters, in his telling, brought appreciation, career growth, and protection from above

He went to court. He submitted a list of 33 encounters and asked for an inquiry. He turned a press claim into a legal record.

Punjab Police suspended him.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court refused to entertain a petition seeking a CBI probe based only on media reports about his confession. A police officer publicly said he killed dozens of people in fake encounters. The larger chain stayed mostly untouched.

Even Paramjit Kaur Khalra said the government should listen to him.

His story matters not because he was powerful or famous. It matters because he described how the machine worked: pick up, kill, stage, promote, protect.

Fake encounters in Punjab were not only about fear or chaos or desperate anti-terror policing. According to one of the men inside them, they were also about ambition, obedience, and career incentives.

Poll: A Punjab Police officer publicly confessed to killing 83 people in fake encounters, named senior officers who promoted him for it, submitted a list to court, and asked for a CBI inquiry. The state suspended him. The court refused the probe. What does that tell you?

Address

Surrey, BC
V3R–V3X, V3Z, V4A, V4N, V4P

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Truth Tribe show posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category