DIG A.S. Atwal

Avtar Singh Atwal, known as A.S. Atwal, was an officer of the Indian Police Service who rose to Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of the Punjab Police. According to Wikipedia he was born on 23 February 1943, was DIG of the Jalandhar range when he died, and was awarded the President's Police Medal for Gallantry after his death.

He is remembered here for the manner of his death, during the Dharam Yudh Morcha, which, Khushwant Singh said days later, had already sent a lakh of people to jail.

Key moments

• 25 April 1983: He was shot dead as he left Sri Harmandir Sahib after prayers, according to Wikipedia's account, in daylight and a few metres from his bodyguards and car. Ramachandra Guha's account in India After Gandhi, as printed by Scroll, dates the killing to 22 April and says the man who shot him at close range walked in afterwards. Guha adds that the murder further demoralised the Punjab Police.
• 28 April 1983: speaking in the Rajya Sabha, Khushwant Singh called the murder of Atwal an act of sacrilege outside the premises of the Golden Temple. He said the killing had been condemned by everyone, Sant Longowal and even Bhindranwale included, and that it was not yet clear whether the shots were fired from inside the temple or outside. He also said the officer's name had been linked in popular memory to police "encounters" in which many people lost their lives, and that he was a marked man for Dal Khalsa. Those are the Rajya Sabha member's statements in debate (Gurmit Singh, vol. II, Appendix 36, p. 330).

What he is remembered for. The killing of a senior police officer as he left Sri Harmandir Sahib, which Khushwant Singh called sacrilege and Guha says demoralised the police. The sources found here do not say who fired the shots or whether anyone was convicted.