Assassination of IG Trilok Chand Katoch

 

(Editor’s Note: Inspector General of Prisons, Trilok Chand Katoch, who was due to retire soon, was the top administrative officer for prisons in Punjab, of which Chandigarh is the state capital. He had been shifted to the post from direct supervision of prisons in 1985 under pressure from Sikh politicians who alleged his treatment of Sikh youth in detention was inhumane.

 

Typically, of the Indian state, instead of taking any legal action to prosecute Trilok Chand Katoch for his orders to mentally and physically torture and starve the Sikhs held in prison without trial, he was simply taken out of mind and sight, and protected by mass personal security and CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force).

 

Bhai Harjinder Singh Jinda and Bhai Gurnam Singh Gamma alias Pehlwan assassinated the top prison administrator of Punjab state near his home in Chandigarh on Saturday 10th January 1987, and then escaped on a motor scooter. Trilok Chand Katoch, aged 57, inspector general of prisons, was the highest-ranking police official to be killed by Khalistani’s in the movement for freedom, justice and equal rights. He was due to retire in September.

 

Police said, T. C. Katoch was returning to his home from a market when two Sikh gunmen accosted him. He tried to flee but was hit by three bullets and died on the spot.)

 

The following is how Harjinder Singh Jinda fondly described this action in his jail letters:

“…Once I had left a set of weapons with Ajmer Singh Pardhan (Amritsar). With those weapons Ajmer Singh committed a bank robbery with Gurmeet Singh Tony (Jalandhar) and Harjinder Singh Kali (Ludhiana). On that occasion they had gone into the bank and fired straight away causing commotion for no reason; this resulted the robbery taking longer and people gathering around, however they came back with the money.

 

When I found out about what had happened, I asked Pardhan, “Why did you fire shots?” and he replied, “To spread fear and make them take us seriously.” I told him not to fire shots like that ever again, that you can get caught because public gathered when shots were fired. Then he said he will not fire shots again.

 

Pardhan was an intelligent academic with a B.A degree, but he was fairly simple and he had a bit of a lisp when pronouncing certain words. Physically he had very sharp features and a striking presence, once you saw him, you wouldn’t forget him.

 

Gurmeet Singh Tony on the other hand was from the Jalandhar district and at first, he was with Babbar Khalsa. I was introduced to him by Baath. He was a very high-spirited character, you could send him anywhere as he was smart, sharp operator and very confident. Clean shaven and roughly 5 feet and 7 inches tall. He was such a master at withholding his true identity that he even managed to create an alias as R.K. Gupta. He had an identity card in this name.

 

One time, Pardhan and Gupta along with (Harjinder Singh) Kali had gone to the Ludhiana Army base, to snatch a sten gun from the guard at the gate, as Singhs did not have many weapons. Gupta and Pardhan went to the guard in the morning, while Kali stood next to the scooter. Soon as they approached the guard, both Singhs started snatching the sten gun. The guard grab hold of Gupta, and the other guards watching from a distance blew their whistles. The sten gun was attached to the chain of the guard’s belt. After a lengthy scuffle between the 3 of them, they shot the guard and escaped without the sten gun.

 

Bhai Gurmeet Singh always showed me a huge amount of love and respect. He would always ask me to come and stay at his house at night. I would go to stay a night with (Satnam Singh) Bawa, Manju and Gurmeet Singh alias Gupta, he would get happy and order food from the best places so we could all feast. Due to his brotherly love and kindness towards me, I knew I could trust him with my life without a shadow of doubt. He along with Pardhan had kept spare parts, and he had attained the whole information about them too. Because Pardhan had a spare parts shop in Amritsar, and he had given Gupta all the information about spare parts. They had grown to become very close with each other as well as all our families.

 

I had travelled to Hoshiarpur with Charanjit Singh (Channi). Here a Singh who had told us about all the misdeeds of I.G. Katoch. This Katoch had ensured every Sikh who was in jail due to the Dharam Yudh Morcha was brutally tortured and as such he was seen as a staunch enemy of the Sikhs. Nachhattar Singh Rode who was serving 20-year jail sentence due to assassinating Lala Jagat Narain also had an attempt made on his life whilst inside, as per the orders of I.G. Katoch. He also talked against the Sikhs and for these reasons, we got the full details of his house address and hangouts from the Singh.

 

Then I and Charanjit Singh made our way to Chandigarh, and here we checked out the house and office of the perpetrator. For many days, we kept an eye on these locations, and kept watch on the I.G. We went to his office and at that time he was not there. Channi had done most of the spying and found the house and the office of Katoch in Sector 35, whilst myself, Bittu and Pehlwan were making preparations at a safe-house in Chandigarh. Because of having missed out on previous actions, Channi was adamant to go along and partake in this one and would daily remind me, “Like before, do not betray me this time. Take me with you to punish this perpetrator!”

 

There was a heavy C.R.P.F. and Police presence in Chandigarh, and the area around Katoch’s office and home was a very busy and affluent one. As extra precaution in these times, the state had banned allowing two people on a scooter; this combination made it very difficult to plan this action.

 

Due to this, Gurmeet Singh Tony had delivered us a scooter from Ludhiana and parked it at the local bus stand in Chandigarh. A few times when we had gone out to plan the execution, we saw him on his routine walk from home to the office, however each time due to the heavy C.R.P.F. presence we would abort our mission. The weekend arrived and so our group headed back to Ludhiana to rest up and revise our strategy.

 

The very next Monday at about 10.30am, Pehlwan and I pulled up on the scooter and waited in the path of his daily route. There was still on this day a large number of C.R.P.F. swarming the area, however I told Pehlwan, “The entourage and security were a few hundred yards behind Katoch and if we time this right, we could finish him and escape through the alleys.” Pehlwan agreed that we should do it now before the armed units caught up and closed the slight gap.

 

I let Pehlwan off the scooter as he walked up to I.G. Katoch and put the revolver to his ear; I kept the scooter going anticipating him to run back after completing the hit. As Pehlwan pulled the trigger, Katoch flinched and the shot missed! They broke into a grapple and Pehlwan started to beat him, so I pulled the stand down on the scooter and ran up to Katoch drawing my pistol.

 

We both unloaded our bullets into his torso until he dropped dead at our feet. I took out the letter claiming responsibility in the name of Khalistan Commando Force, under the command of General Labh Singh and threw it on his body, before we jumped back on the scooter and darted through the alleys. This all happened very quickly and by the time the C.R.P.F. had got to his body we were long gone.

 

We had a Singh waiting for us at Mohali bus stand, who took the scooter and guns from us; from here I jumped in a three-wheeler and got on to a road towards Delhi. Pehlwan had got onto a bus going directly to Ludhiana. I stopped the three-wheeler at the next bus stop that came and took the local bus to Banur, and from there to Rajpura, then to Khanna, before finally arriving at Ludhiana. I changed buses so that if I was stopped in Ludhiana, evidence would show that I had come from Khanna.

 

The letter that we left on his body was hand written by myself and sign-stamped by General Labh Singh on behalf of Khalistan Commando Force. In the letter, we had given a warning to all prison staff, that if they tortured any Sikhs, they would meet the same fate as Katoch. During this action I had worn Ray ban sunglasses and a motorcycle helmet as disguise. No-one in the sector had realised what was happening when we executed Katoch even though it was in front of a busy marketplace. When the C.R.P.F. heard gunshots, they got scared and did not come close, but when we escaped, they came running to the dead Katoch.

 

When I met up with the Singhs, Pehlwan was already there waiting for me. All the Singhs were delighted with this action. Channi approached me and I could tell he was not happy, he jokingly said “Like all the other times, you betrayed me again?!” I said that we didn’t do this, but he knew that it was us. We apologised for not taking him with us on this action. After, we all joked about it and laughed…”

 

Assi Attankwadi Nahi – Sukha Jinda