The Sikh Relief team travelled to Raikot in Ludhiana to meet Mata Malkeet Kaur. Mata Ji shared many personal stories about the amazing Gursikhs she’d had the honour to meet, such as Gurjant Singh Budhsinghwala, who would visit her humble home and share mealtimes with her family.
Malkeet Kaur’s younger son, Jagdev Singh, was left broken-hearted by the Government of India’s brutal attack on Harimandar Sahib in June 1984. Unable to tolerate the state sponsored terrorism unleashed against innocent Sikhs that followed the 1984 attack, Jagdev Singh joined the movement against the atrocities taking place. At about the age of 18, after completing Class 10, he began keeping the company of Gursikhs who were involved in the resistance movement. One day around 1990, the CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) abducted Jagdev Singh as he was on his way home. He was interrogated at the Bassian police centre and was severely tortured, so much so that he became mentally unstable. The village elders got together and managed to release Jagdev from police custody and for his own safety and recovery from the injuries he’d suffered, they decided to send him away to Calcutta.
After some time, Jagdev Singh was not getting any better, so he returned home to his parents, but sadly, one day in 2003, he passed away from his injuries. The rest of the family had not been spared either, Jagdev Singh’s elder brother too was beaten by the police on many occasions. Malkeet Kaur and her husband had tried everything to save their sons from the butcherous hands of the police. They had taken out a loan on their house in order to pay off the corrupt officers who were holding Jagdev and even sold some land to make ends meet. But another tragedy was to strike – Malkeet Kaur’s husband, Jasmail Singh passed away, leaving her and her elder son alone and burdened with debts, but her elder son was unable to work with his broken leg which had become trapped under a tractor.
Malkeet Kaur struggled on, until her son’s leg repaired and he began farming other people’s land to make a living. But their crippling debt and spiralling interest rates, meant their house was on the verge of being repossessed. Sikh Relief stepped in to help pay off their debt so Malkeet Kaur would not have to suffer further.
