Tarn Taran

Tarn Taran is a town and district in the Majha region of Punjab. The district was formed in 2006 out of Amritsar district and became Punjab's 19th; the announcement was made at the commemoration of Guru Arjan Dev's martyrdom (KVK Tarn Taran district profile).

The shrine. Guru Arjan Dev founded Tarn Taran in 1596. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism dates the start of the tank to 13 April 1590, with full-scale digging from 19 August 1590, and the building of the main shrine, Darbar Sahib, from 19 March 1596. The tank, known as Dukh Nivaran, is one of the largest Sikh sarovars. Sardar Budh Singh of the Faizullapuria misl and Sardar Jassa Singh Ramgarhia had the Darbar Sahib built in 1768, and Ranjit Singh visited in 1802, completed the steps and had the shrine reconstructed. The SGPC took control on 27 January 1921.

The cremation grounds. In 1994 and 1995 Jaswant Singh Khalra examined records at three crematoria in what was then Amritsar district, at Patti, Tarn Taran and Durgiana Mandir.

• He compared the cremation logs with police firewood receipts, working from about 300 kg of wood per body. On 16 January 1995 he issued a press release alleging that security forces had cremated thousands of unidentified bodies between 1984 and 1994 (Punjab Disappeared). His investigation estimated that more than 25,000 people were disappeared and killed across Punjab between 1984 and 1995 (The Tribune).
• After Supreme Court orders, the CBI listed 2,097 bodies that Punjab Police had cremated as unclaimed or unidentified between June 1984 and December 1994 in the police districts of Amritsar, Majitha and Tarn Taran: 582 identified, 278 partly identified and 1,237 unidentified (NHRC public notice, 2004). ThePrint reports that the CBI report showed 984 bodies cremated as "lavaris" (unclaimed) in Tarn Taran district. Human Rights Watch and Ensaaf wrote in 2007 that the NHRC had limited its work to three crematoria in one district.
• 6 September 1995: policemen took Khalra into a van outside his home in Kabir Park, Amritsar. He was tortured for weeks and killed in late October 1995, and his body was thrown into the Harike river (The Tribune).
• November 2005: six Punjab Police personnel were convicted at Patiala. DSP Jaspal Singh and Amarjit Singh got life imprisonment and four others seven years. In 2007 the High Court upheld five convictions and raised all five sentences to life, and the Supreme Court upheld the convictions in November 2011 (Ensaaf).

The Tribune notes that the larger crime, the estimated 25,000 disappearances, was never separately investigated or prosecuted.