All the 17 youth who were convicted had in 2008 together moved into a rented room, where a murder had already taken place.
Sukhjot Singh’s family in Sanghera village has been spending sleepless nights. His father Jagdev is numb, while mother Manjit Kaur does not prepare food any more.
A pall of gloom has descended on the family ever since Sukhjot was sentenced to death, with 16 other Punjabis, for the murder of a Pakistani.
“After spending about three months [in the UAE], he had started sending money home in 2008 when police picked him up. He said it was for questioning and he would be released soon,” a wailing Jagdev said, recalling his conversation with Sukhjot last December.
“This [death sentence] has ruined us. My son used to toil as a mechanic 15-18 hours a day. Why would he ever think of killing anybody?” wondered a shell-shocked Manjit.
Parminder Singh, another native of the village who returned from Dubai a month ago, said all the 17 youth who were convicted had in 2008 together moved into a rented room, where a murder had already taken place.
“Police rounded them all up on suspicion, since the earlier occupants had moved out,” he said.
Parminder said the law had been subverted to punish innocents. “The kind of physical torture some of them were subjected to is testimony to the fact that they were coerced into confessing involvement in the crime,” he said.
Parminder said Sachin from Phagwara in Jalandhar district called up his family to tell that a youth from nearby Barapind village was so badly tortured that he lost his mental balance.
All residents of Phagwara have joined hands to ensure his safe release. They have started contacting residents of other areas so that they could put pressure on their elected representatives to do the needful to save Sachin, Sukhjot and the others from the gallows.
In Khukhrana village in Moga district, Surjit, father of another convict Kuldeep Singh, said it seemed to be a conspiracy.
“I sent my son to the UAE after raising a loan of Rs1 lakh. My son is a docile person who went there to salvage the [economic] condition of the family. How can he commit a murder?”
Surjit, a schoolteacher, said the family’s plan to wed Kuldeep’s sister had been stuck. He said there seemed to be a pattern in violence against Punjabis. “First, it was in Australia, now, it is in the UAE.”
Surinder Kaur, mother of Kulwinder Singh, yet another convict, recalled his last phone call, saying, “Maan, main nirdosh haan (Mother, I am innocent).”
She said her son said he would soon be let off, but the news of his death sentence shattered our dreams. “We just don’t know whom to look at for help.”
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