Shaheed Bhai Satwant Singh

Satwant Singh was a constable in the Delhi Police on security duty at the residence of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. On 31 October 1984, about four months after Operation Blue Star, he and fellow guard Beant Singh shot her at 1 Safdarjung Road, New Delhi. He was hanged at Tihar Jail on 6 January 1989. Sikh institutions honour him as a Shaheed; the Indian courts treated the act as murder. The Supreme Court judgment records that he was on security duty at the Prime Minister's house from 2 July 1983; Wikipedia gives his birth as 1962 in Agwan, Gurdaspur district.

The state's case: The First Information Report, based on Head Constable Narain Singh's statement, said Beant Singh fired his revolver at the Prime Minister and Satwant Singh fired at her with a Sten gun. The charge sheet, as the judgment quotes it, said Beant Singh fired five rounds and Satwant Singh 25. The prosecution said the two had arranged their duties so that Beant Singh was at the gate and Satwant Singh in the sentry booth beside it. Indo-Tibetan Border Police guards seized both men and took them to the guard room. The Supreme Court judgment records that both were shot there and that Beant Singh died of his wounds; Justice Shetty notes that what happened inside the guard room is not on the record. The case against Beant Singh ended with his death. Satwant Singh was arrested at the Red Fort on 15 November 1984, and on 1 December a confession was recorded from him in Tihar Jail before a magistrate. He was charged with murder, conspiracy, the attempted murder of Assistant Sub-Inspector Rameshwar Dayal, who was wounded, and Arms Act offences.

What the courts found: The trial court, the High Court and the Supreme Court all found him guilty of the murder of Indira Gandhi. On 3 August 1988 Justice Oza held that three eyewitnesses (Narain Singh, Rameshwar Dayal and Nathu Ram), the post-mortem and the ballistic evidence proved his part even if his confession was left out. Justice Shetty found "not even an iota of doubt" and rejected Satwant Singh's plea that he had been "decoyed" to the gate and hit in crossfire, finding that he was uninjured when caught and "must have been shot evidently inside the guard room". On sentence Justice Oza wrote that in India a change of leader is "permissible by ballot and not by bullet"; Justice Shetty called the act "a betrayal of the worst order".

Key moments

• 1985: the Delhi High Court orders the trial held inside Tihar Jail before Additional Sessions Judge Mahesh Chandra.
• 22 January 1986: Judge Mahesh Chandra convicts him and sentences him to death (UPI); the High Court confirms the sentence on 3 December 1986.
• 3 August 1988: the Supreme Court dismisses his appeal and Kehar Singh's, and acquits Balbir Singh.
• 6 January 1989: he is hanged at Tihar Jail with Kehar Singh.

The hanging: Wire reports say the two men were marched from their death row cells to the gallows and pronounced dead within half an hour, and a Home Ministry official said Satwant Singh had no regrets. According to Sunil Gupta, the Tihar law officer who watched, as reviewed in Sikh Siyasat News, Satwant Singh said only God could judge him, both men shouted "Jo Bole So Nihal", and their bodies were not given to their families.

The Panthic account: Sikh institutions place the act in the context of the army attack on Sri Akal Takht Sahib and Sri Harmandir Sahib in June 1984. The Tribune reported a bhog and ardas at Sri Akal Takht Sahib for Satwant Singh and Beant Singh on 6 January 2003, and a shaheedi samagam there in 2004 at which Jathedar Giani Joginder Singh Vedanti honoured his mother, Bibi Pyar Kaur. At the anniversary on 6 January 2015, Jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh of Sri Akal Takht Sahib called Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh "great martyrs", and Dal Khalsa pressed the SGPC for a memorial to them and Beant Singh (Sikh Siyasat News). The SGPC's report of a martyrdom anniversary at Sri Darbar Sahib titles him Shaheed Bhai Satwant Singh. Sikh bodies report that portraits of the three hang in the Sikh museum inside the Darbar Sahib complex.

Remembered for: In Sikh memory he is Shaheed Bhai Satwant Singh, whose martyrdom Sikh institutions mark on 6 January, with Kehar Singh's. The state and the courts see the killing of a Prime Minister by a guard posted to protect her. Both views are held, and both are recorded here.