Assassination of Arjun Das

Explained by Shaheed Bhai Harjinder Singh Jinda

 

“…When I went into his office, I told the servant outside that I need to get a passport form signed from ‘Sir’. I went into the office and the perpetrator (Arjun Das) had two or three men sat with him. He was on the phone. After putting the phone down, he started talking to the men sitting with him. I stood near them for two to three minutes and then quietly left without anyone noticing.

 

The perpetrator had countless Sikhs killed in 1984, had Gurdwaras set on fire and had committed injustices against Sikhs.

 

I, another associate and brother Heera (Codename for Sukhdev Singh Sukha) went to eliminate the perpetrator. We took our scooter from our rented house; two of us sat on the scooter and the third brother sat on a three-wheeler. When we were near the enemy’s office, we took the number plate and stickers off the scooter and fitted the magazine onto the sten gun. The third brother put it in a leather bag. I had a .55 revolver and brother Heera had a .38 revolver. We arrived at his office at nine in the morning and waited there for him.

 

He came at about ten o’clock. There were a lot of public and also a big market near his office. The three of us went towards his office. I was going slowly on the scooter, at that time, I wore a Dastar (Turban) and the other two were clean shaven. As we were going towards his office, the public standing there were looking at us and they were suspicious of us. Then the third brother took out his sten gun from his bag.

 

By this time, brother Heera was about to fire a shot at the guard’s head. Before he could aim the ran off, the second guard quickly took out his pistol and at exactly this moment the third brother pointed the sten gun and fired at the guards who had drawn their pistols, due to that we were saved. Then the third brother and brother Heera fired all the bullets from the revolver into the chest of Arjun Das.

 

I also went along with them into the office. I and brother Heera were armed with revolvers. We thoroughly checked the perpetrator by moving him with our feet to see if he was dead or not. He had died on the spot. Brother Heera’s revolver was empty; I passed him my revolver, grabbed the dead guard’s pistol out of his hand and took it.

 

We then left his office, an old man from a nearby teashop went towards the third brother to hit him with a chair. At this time his sten gun’s magazine was empty and he was loading his other magazine. We then fired towards the old man and he ran away. Due to the third brother’s magazine being empty, the old man survived. We were at a bit of a distance.

 

The public ran out of the market far away and were watching the scene of action. Then we raised Khalistan slogans and slogans of Sant Bhindranwale, we told the people we killed this enemy. Because the shots were fired near the bridge, people had gathered at the place where the main road was; they had parked their scooters and cars and were watching all of the action. Then we got on the scooter and left.

 

As we were leaving, a milkman who was on a cycle, was looking at us carefully. I randomly told brother Heera to shoot him. I said this, so that the milkman won’t give our description to the police. I only asked brother Heera to only scare him, but brother Heera really fired a shot which did not hit the milkman and he fell off his cycle.

 

As we left, scooters and cars also left because we were also getting on the bridge. To get to our base we had to take a turn half a kilometre down the road. But at the cross roads it was a red light and there was a police jeep there so we couldn’t take our turning. It wasn’t good for us to be waiting for the green light at the junction because there were cars and scooters that watched our action at the bridge; they were also now watching. So, we missed the turning we needed to take and went down another road.

 

We hadn’t even travelled half a kilometre and ahead came Rajiv Gandhi’s house. When I saw that we were near Rajiv’s house, I then turned down another road and dropped off the third brother, he then boarded a bus.

 

We were saved because I knew the roads of Delhi quite well, otherwise we would have been left lost. Then as we were going ahead there was a major police checkpoint. We were travelling through an area where the houses belonged to ministers, they had guards stood in front of their houses. I saw the police checkpoint and said to brother Heera, “Get ready, in case we get into a shoot out!”

 

Brother Heera replied in fearless manner, “Don’t worry, we’ll straighten them out!”

 

In this way we would give each other moral strength whenever any difficult situation would arise. But Waheguru protected us and the police didn’t signal us to stop. We then took the scooter through the small roads and alleys and arrived back at our base. No one was able to note the number plate or the colour of the scooter…”

 

Shaheed Bhai Harjinder Singh Jinda