Police firing at Bhatinda Special Jail, 9 October 1960

Who: Akali volunteers held in Bhatinda Special Jail during the Punjabi Suba morcha of 1960-61, the jail staff and the Punjab Police, and the Punjab Government of Chief Minister Partap Singh Kairon. Gurmit Singh's history names the four prisoners who died as Jaswant Singh, Chanchal Singh, Nazar Singh and Ranjit Singh.

What: By October 1960 the Akali jails were crowded. Gurmit Singh says prisoners were pressed to sign unconditional apologies, some on the false plea that their thumb marks were for railway passes, and that tension rose in the overcrowded Bhatinda jail in the first week of October. Grewal says Kairon began releasing Akali volunteers to give the impression that they were recanting.

On 9 October the authorities were about to release 246 Akali volunteers and asked them to sign or thumb-mark papers. Jaswant Singh shouted that the papers were not for railway passes but for an apology, and the prisoners refused to leave. Police surrounded the jail and fired, "allegedly" to control a violent mob of prisoners, in Gurmit Singh's words. Jaswant Singh was shot first and three others died; about fifty were reported injured. Grewal also says four detainees were killed in the firing at Bhatinda.

A deputation of lawyers that included a Congress MLA and former minister was refused permission to visit the jail. The Akali Dal telegraphed the Prime Minister and the Governor asking for a judicial inquiry. The Punjab Government appointed Justice Falshaw, but the Akali Dal boycotted him, asking instead for a Supreme Court judge and the removal of officials such as DIG Chowdhry Ram Singh. Gurmit Singh quotes Falshaw's report as saying the jail held almost four times its authorised number, with food, clothing and sanitation hopelessly inadequate, and says the paper Blitz called it a "black hole of the Punjab". On 10 October, he adds, police cordoned and fired on a procession of about 250 Sikhs from Gurdwara Dukhniwaran, Patiala, that had set out to protest, killing two.

Where: Bhatinda Special Jail, Punjab, and Patiala for the procession of 10 October.

Why it mattered: Gurmit Singh says the killings deepened Sikh alienation, and that Ashok Mehta of the Praja Socialist Party warned on 30 October that an explosive situation was developing. The Sikh side counted the dead as martyrs. In 1965 Sant Fateh Singh told Prime Minister Shastri that about two dozen young men had been shot down by the police in the 1960 movement "and thus had to court martyrdom", and that unarmed Sikhs had been fired on in jails for asking in writing that their release be unconditional (Gurmit Singh's printed record of the talks).