Saka Nakodar: five saroops burnt and four Sikhs shot, February 1986

Who: Sikhs of Nakodar and the villages round it; Punjab Police with the CRPF and BSF; and the Punjab Government, an Akali ministry under Surjit Singh Barnala that was in office from 29 September 1985 to 11 May 1987.

What: On 2 February 1986 unidentified people burned five saroops of Sri Guru Granth Sahib at Gurdwara Guru Arjan Sahib in Nakodar, Jalandhar district (Ensaaf). On 4 February Sikhs joined a procession to collect the remains so that they could be taken to Sri Goindwal Sahib, as Sikh practice requires. Eyewitnesses say Punjab Police, with the CRPF and BSF, opened fire on it without warning and killed four: Ravinder Singh, 19, of Littran, who fell first; Baldhir Singh Multani, 21; Jhilman Singh, 24; and Harminder Singh, 26. Ensaaf says Harminder Singh was shot in the mouth and left for dead, found alive at the Nakodar civil hospital, taken into police custody and killed near Lambra. The police recorded the dead as unidentified and cremated them, though Ravinder Singh's father, Baldev Singh, had identified his son's body; he sat in at Nakodar police station until the Government promised a time-bound judicial inquiry. The police said they warned the crowd and first fired plastic bullets; Ensaaf says doctors found no plastic-bullet wounds, and that Ravinder Singh's death certificate says he died of natural causes at home.

The Justice Gurnam Singh Commission reported to the Punjab Government on 31 October 1986. In paragraphs 76 and 77 of Part I it found that the order to fire at the lower part of the body "was completely ignored", that it appeared the bullets were intentionally aimed at the vital parts of the four men killed, and that the firing, which killed four and seriously injured eight, "was not justified and could have been avoided" (Ensaaf). The report reached the Vidhan Sabha on 5 March 2001 as the last item, was never discussed, and no action-taken report was tabled. Ensaaf's profiles of Ravinder Singh and Jhilman Singh say their families received Part I only in early 2019, after the Speaker's statement of 13 February 2019; Part II, with the testimony, is reported missing. Ensaaf says no criminal proceedings have been held.

Where: Gurdwara Guru Arjan Sahib and the streets of Nakodar, in Jalandhar district.

Why it mattered: It is remembered as the Saka Nakodar. The Quint (2021) takes 1978, 1986 and 2015 as the three dates that explain why beadbi remains a wound for Sikhs. Four men who went to collect burnt saroops were shot by the state's own police, under an Akali government; a judicial inquiry found the firing unjustified, and two of the families waited 33 years for a copy of its report.