“Kairon was of the firm opinion that the greatest strength of Punjab was its large size and tremendous geographical and cultural diversity, with the Punjabi language and culture providing a unifying template,” reads the book. “The closeness between Lal and Daya Singh indicated an underlying conspiracy,” says Gurinder Singh, adding the book is based on facts. “It’s not clear how much of Lal’s influence worked, but in April 1991, the Supreme Court of India converted the death sentence of Daya Singh into life imprisonment and was finally freed in 1994,” reads the book. The book records how Devi Lal, one of the opponents of Kairon, began to take interest in pardon for Daya Singh.
Police investigations had linked Kairon’s assassination to personal revenge by the main accused Sucha Singh and had found no political conspiracy. The fourth assassin, Daya Singh, was arrested in 1972 and sentenced to death in December 1978.
#Kairon patu trial
Three of four assassins Sucha Singh, Baldev Singh and Nahar Singh Fauji, were sentenced to death by a trial court in Rohtak, which was confirmed by the high court on September 21, 1970, and they were hanged to death.
#Kairon patu driver
Also, killed with him were three others - Kairon’s friend Baldev Kapur, a director in Punjab government his personal assistant Ajit Singh and driver Dalip Singh.
“The question that continues to remain alive is this: Who was the real murderer? Why was political conspiracy ruled out?”Ī year after US-educated Kairon stepped down as chief minister in 1964, he was waylaid and shot dead on Februon Grand Trunk Road near Rai in Sonepat when he was on way from Delhi to Chandigarh. “Why would an unknown person who was already wanted by the police for murder attract even more police attention by killing someone who was no longer a chief minister? Could there have been a deeper political conspiracy?” the book says, quoting the Kairon family. The book records how the Kairon family suspected “political foul play” after a CBI probe into the assassination was denied despite requests from Punjab MLAs. “If he had more time, the history of this region would have been different”.Ĭuriously, the book puts the spotlight on the rivalry between Kairon and then Punjab Congress leader Chaudhary Devi Lal, who later became deputy prime minister and Haryana chief minister, raising a question mark on the “closeness” between the latter and one of the four assassins of Kairon, who was a favourite of then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and one of the tallest leader in post-Partition Punjab. “This is an honest effort to tell the true story of the man who had such a deep and long-lasting impact on Punjab, says the preface of the book, Partap Singh Kairon: A Visionary, which shares authorship with Panjab University historian M Rajivlochan and his civil servant wife Meeta Rajivlochan. The book records how the Kairon family suspected political foul play after a CBI probe into the assassination in 1965 was denied despite requests from Punjab MLAs.(Keshav Singh/HT)
Author Gurinder Singh Kairon with the book, Partap Singh Kairon: A Visionary, in Chandigarh. Chandigarh Fifty-five years after the assassination of Partap Singh Kairon, who was chief minister of an undivided Punjab for eight years (1956-64), a book co-authored by his younger son Gurinder Singh Kairon has raked up political conspiracy in the murder that has so far been considered a closed chapter in turbulent history of the border state.
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