I had just joined The Indian Express, and the
row over the mysterious death of daughter of then SGPC chief
Bibi Jagir Kaur was still to fall off the front pages. This
was a quick-recall piece for the national audience. The time
when the tall leaders placed on pedestals of high morals
would mend fences with the same party led by Badal and share
the limelight alongside Bibi was still a good three years
ahead. This piece appeared as the cover story of Indian
Express’ Sunday magazine then called FLAIR.
The Kurrimaar Row Puppy love dead, may also claim a political career
S P Singh
My dear Kamal, sweet sweet kiss full of great love on your sweet lips. Kamal I love you and cannot live without you…I love my Tinku which is my every desire, every dream and I will come to you as soon as possible
Puppy love, perhaps.
But it is this love story that may finally prove to be the nemesis of one of the most powerful leader in Punjab. What’s more, it may also affect the political fortunes of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal who, since his bitter power tussle seemed stable after a prestigious bye-election where he humbled his political foes at a time when his government’s image is not very rosy.
Media gaze on the latest twists in the sensational case regarding mysterious death of teenage Harpreet Kaur, daughter of high-profile SGPC president Bibi Jagir Kaur can only be compared to the publicity Bibi got when she was catapulted to the centre stage of sikh religio-political affairs in March 1999 as Badal handpicked her to head the premier religious shrine management panel after throwing out his bete noire G S Tohra.
Bibi Jagir Kaur’s image had gained a larger than life persona after she remained under the global media’s glare during the heady days of Khalsa Tercentenary Celebrations, an event where she rubbed shoulders with no less than a galaxy of VVIPs including the prime minister.
But as later events showed, there was turbulence within the mind of the SGPC chief. As she remained a picture of beaming composure before the popping flashlights, basking in the glow of television cameras, Bibi’s mind was in the small township of Phagwara, an NRI pocket on the Delhi-Amritsar highway where her strong minded daughter was being persuaded to shun her childhood love and had been made to undergo an abortion against her wishes.
In a state where the socio-cultural milieu’s realities dictate that those high-up in the authority can afford to be libertines as long as the dirt does not hit media headlines, Bibi’s anxiety at keeping under wraps her daughter’s affair is understandable. But her determination in continuing to do so – and prey, at what cost! -- is confounding.
“Stories of father killing their daughter to escape perceived shame are not rare, but a mother doing so, that too a mother with such a deeply religious mind and background, is unheard of,” said many sociologists.
Bibi had got too little time to savour the heady euphoria of the success of Tercentenary celebrations of the order of Khalsa when the news of her daughter’s death made headlines on April 21. Doubts were raised over the hurried way in which the cremation was performed within hours at Begowal, and the ashes immersed the same day. Badal chose to rush to attend the cremation, a decision which his media managers were later left to defend as a “social engagement, nothing less nothing more”. The local SSP went out of the way to term it a natural death in order to explain the absence of inquest proceedings.
But the elaborate cover up operation did not last long. Before long, even before the bhog ceremony, the veneer of ‘all normal’ came unstuck as newspapers went to town with the story that Harpreet was married secretly to a village youth she was in love with since her school days. The photographs of Harpreet decked in bridal wear and Kamaljit applying ‘sindoor’ in the parting of her hair left little to doubt as far as the common man was concerned. But the law machinery apparently needs more than common wisdom to prove anything, and both Jagir Kaur and her protectors knew it only too well, a knowledge that emboldened her to cling to her job despite the shrill cries that she quit the top religious position in the face of the scandal.
Incidentally, it was in the playgrounds of a school founded by Bibi that both fell in love, a love that finally consumed her and burns him to avenge “the death of my rose.”
The state government played all the cards in the dilly dally pack – “there is no need of inquiry”, “no one has approached me for a probe”, “a local superintendant has been asked to probe”, “a high level team has been asked to probe”, “there is no need for CBI probe” – it was finally left to the high court to order the CBI to investigate the matter. This was the most decisive turn in the Harpreet episode, as later developments showed.
A preliminary inquiry by CBI resulted in the FIR which named Bibi as number one accused charged with criminal role in culpable homicide (not amounting to murder), conspiracy, causing abortion without consent, destroying evidence and wrongful confinement. Other who fell in the CBI’s dragnet included two of Bibi’s close aides Paramjit and his sister-in-law British citizen Dalwinder Kaur at whose house Harpreet was allegedly confined wrongly and spent her last days.
Though the CBI chose to arrest five of the seven accused, Bibi remained free but treaded warily making herself neither freely accessible nor becoming technically a fugitive. “I am not running away. I am not a fugitive,” said Bibi, still a picture of the same composure she exhibited when cameras were rolling in Anandpur Sahib on Tercentenary function.
October 14, 2000