Paramjeet Kaur(26),Satwant Kaur(27),Tarlochan Singh(22)
Children of:Bhai Amrik Singh, second-in-command to Jarnail Singh
Bhindranwale and AISSF president
Occupation:Paramjeet and Satwant are lecturers, Tarlochan a student
When Amrik Singh died, he was doing his PhD in Punjabi. Little wonder then that his children too have an academic bent of mind. While Paramjeet and Satwant are lecturers in zoology and English, their younger brother Tarlochan is pursuing his masters degree in IT.
“After my father’s death, it was my mother, Harmeet Kaur, who faced a tough time,” says Paramjeet. So Harmeet worked in her fields (they had enough land) to help provide a good education to her children. “After Operation Bluestar, we didn’t believe my husband had died. We waited for many years, but he didn’t return. Later we shifted from Amritsar and purchased land in a village near Muktsar, and my mother in-law helped me a lot. With her permission I sent my daughters to a convent school in Muktsar city as there were no good schools in the village and when my son started studying we shifted to the city,” she says.
Raising children was only part of the problem; the family suffered constant harassment after her husband’s death. “If guests visited us, the police would surround the house as if a ‘militant’ had come visiting,” she recalls. “Even our relatives were not spared by the police, who went to their homes and questioned them.”
“I also faced the wrath of many radical groups which wanted me to offer my children to them, but I was firm as I had lost much because of my husband’s involvement and didn’t want to ruin my children’s career,” she says. This, despite the fact that not only was Amrik president of the All India Sikh Students’ Federation, but his father, Sant Kartar Singh Khalsa, was the head of Damdami Taksal and predecessor of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.

... contd.