God is one...so goes the hymn inscribed in Gurmukhi atop his gate at Kaka Kandiala village in Tarn Taran district. Santokh Singh Dhillon is a saintly vision in white. The mounds of hay he wades through silence his footfalls. His crinkled green eyes ask no questions as you stand there, waiting for him to brush off the hay from his white beard. “Come in, have water,” he mumbles.

The world ceased to surprise this 74-year-old the day a police party picked up the younger of his two sons, Kuldeep Singh, 27, from his house 15 years ago. “It was the noon of September 11, 1992; I had gone out to get some implements. When I returned, there was a crowd outside my house. They said policemen had taken away my son.”

Paramjit Singh, the elder son who was at home that noon, says it was all over in two minutes. “Before we could raise an alarm, they were gone,” says a neighbour.

They were not expecting the men in khaki, for there were no charges against Kuldeep. “He was a marginal farmer with two children and no links to any militant outfits,” says his brother.

The old father went from one police station to the other, only to be told that his son wasn’t there. Four days later, then Deputy Superintendent of Police Darshan Singh Mann handed him a note and said: “Go, collect you son’s ashes.”

The letter addressed to “Panditji, Seetla Mandir”, read: “Jere char aadmi Mehte thane wich maare si, ohna wichon jo anpachata si, oh Kuldeep Singh si...us de phul chugan de diyo. (Of the four men killed at Mehta police station, the unidentified one was Kuldeep Singh...let his ashes be collected.)”
Santokh went to get his son’s ashes but was turned away by the priest who said no such body had been cremated there.

... contd.