Bibi Balwinder Kaur was among the 483 members of the 1158 Assistant Professors and Librarians Front who had been staging a dharna near the residence of Education Minister Harjot Bains at Gambhirpur village for over two months. They had been issued appointment letters but could not join their positions due to a large number of court petitions challenging the recruitment.
In a handwritten suicide note that went viral, reportedly stamped with drops of her own blood, Balwinder Kaur cited her family troubles but also wrote directly that Education Minister Harjot Bains was solely to blame for her remaining unemployed despite having been selected as an assistant professor. She had received her appointment letter on December 3, 2021, yet was never issued a joining order, leaving her in prolonged mental anguish. A suicide note recovered from the deceased reportedly named the Education Minister’s conduct as one of the causes of her death.
What happened after? Police initially registered a case against Balwinder’s husband and father-in-law for abetment to suicide based on a statement by her brother, Hardev Singh. After massive public pressure and opposition protests, the police’s approach began to shift. SAD leader Mahesh Inder Singh Grewal pointedly noted that despite Bains being named three times in the suicide note, along with an audio recording, no action had been taken against the minister, contrary to standard legal practice, which requires the arrest of anyone named in a suicide note.
The family ultimately agreed to cremate Balwinder’s body only after receiving a written assurance signed not by any senior official but by a “CM Field Officer” promising a suitable government job to the deceased’s five year-old daughter when she comes of age. The Tribune Critics noted the letter carried neither a proper letter number nor an official address header.Teachers’ organisations demanded that Harjot Bains resign so that he could not influence the probe. They also called for a High Court-monitored inquiry. None of this came to pass. Bains remained in his chair. No arrest was made. And the larger issue 483 qualified teachers still waiting for their jobs remained unresolved.
Colonel Pushpinder Singh Bath, a serving Army officer, accused twelve Punjab Police personnel of assaulting him and his son over a parking dispute in Patiala. The colonel suffered a broken arm, while his son sustained head injuries. Bath alleged the assailants four inspector-rank officers and their armed subordinates attacked him and his son without provocation, snatched his identity card and mobile phone, and threatened him with a “fake encounter,” all in public view and under CCTV coverage. Bath’s wife Jaswinder Kaur said the family did not trust the Patiala police and demanded an independent agency investigation. The Punjab and Haryana High Court separately questioned the state government over the significant delay in even registering an FIR in the case.
CM Bhagwant Mann did eventually meet the family and gave personal assurances. He reportedly placed his hand on the colonel’s wife’s head and promised “justice will be delivered,” saying she was not just the country’s daughter but his own as well. Business Standard However, the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s subsequent order transferring the case away from local police to Chandigarh Police was characterised by the opposition as a strong rebuke to the AAP government, which had “repeatedly denied a fair probe.” The case became a litmus test for civil-military relations in Punjab. Several ex-servicemen marched in protest in Patiala and Chandigarh. The decision to eventually refer the matter to the CBI was widely seen as a damage-control measure following intense public outrage.
The alleged fake encounter of 21-year-old Ranjit Singh in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district snowballed into a major political controversy, providing fresh ammunition to the opposition against the Bhagwant Mann-led government, with court-monitored post-mortem proceedings underway and demands for an independent probe. Ranjit’s mother Sukhwinder Kaur alleged that police took her son from home for interrogation, beat him mercilessly, and then staged an encounter to cover up his death in custody. The family refused to accept the body and demanded murder charges be registered against the officers involved. The post-mortem confirmed the cause of death as firearm injuries, but the family remained unsatisfied and announced they would review the autopsy videography before deciding their next course of action.
Harjot Singh Bains, currently serving as Punjab’s Education Minister, is married to IPS officer Jyoti Yadav, a 2019-batch officer of the Punjab cadre. The couple wed in March 2023 at Bibhor Sahib Gurdwara near Nangal. Bains and his wife faced serious controversy when a Mohali district cyber-crime inspector wrote to the Punjab DGP alleging their involvement in a “Rs 100-crore cyber scam.” A three-member SIT was constituted to probe the allegations. Bains and Jyoti Yadav denied the charges and announced plans to file a defamation suit against the inspector. PTC News
The larger concern raised by critics is one of institutional conflict of interest: a Cabinet minister whose wife holds senior police postings in the same state government, raising questions about impartiality in cases where either of them faces scrutiny.
The thread connecting these cases is a recurring pattern: assurances of justice, delayed FIRs, political pressure overriding legal process, and key accused especially those with proximity to power remaining untouched. The Balwinder Kaur case is perhaps the most painful illustration of this failure. Teacher unions described her suicide as reflecting a “comprehensive failure on the part of the Punjab Government, specifically within the realm of higher education,” and called for urgent attention to deep-seated issues in the education sector.
An AAP government that came to power on promises of accountability and an end to VIP culture now faces pointed questions: Why does Harjot Bains named directly in a blood-stamped suicide note continue in office two-plus years later without arrest? Why did the Colonel Bath case require High Court intervention and national outrage before basic FIR registration? Why does Ranjit Singh’s family still await answers?In each case, CM Bhagwant Mann offered words of comfort. What the affected families and Punjab are still waiting for is action.