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I have no hope. In ten to fifteen years, we will also sit down and
give up. How much can we do?
-Paramjeet Kaur, wife of Jaswant S. Khalra
Disappeared 6 September 1995
Why doesn’t the judiciary take any action against them? These
judge-folks, they know everything. They hear the pain in the voices of
the victims and see the honesty in their eyes. Yet they are helpless . .
. it’s been six-and-a-half years since I’ve been pushed around, and
still I have no relief.
-Mohinder Singh, father of Jagraj Singh
Disappeared 14 January 1995
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Punjab, rather the truncated part of the province east of the Pakistani
border that remained with India after the 1947 partition of the
subcontinent, is a member state of the Indian Union. Totally landlocked,
it covers 50,000 out of India’s 3.3 million sq. kilometers of a diverse
geography. Its population of approximately 22 million people is
dominated by the Sikhs, a distinct religious community initiated by Guru
Govind Singh in 1699. W. Owen Cole’s dictionary of Sikhism defines a
Sikh as “any person who believes in God; in the 10 Gurus; in their
principal scripture known as Guru Granth Sahib; in the Khalsa initiation
ceremony and who does not believe in the doctrinal system of any other
religion.” Less than 2 per cent of India’s one billion population, the
Sikhs constitute more than 62.1 percent of Punjab’s approximately 22
million people.
Before the partition of 1947, Punjab used to be an overwhelmingly Muslim
province. The communal partition of 1947 and the civil war in its wake,
took a toll of 200,000 to half a million lives by various estimates. In
less than four decades of that traumatic experience, the Sikhs witnessed
another spell of a bloody political unrest. This unrest developed from
the Sikh political agitation to obtain a radical measure of political
devolution. By the middle of the 1980s the unrest became violently
separatist and was ruthlessly crushed by the Indian government.
Reduced to Ashes: The Insurgency and Human Rights in Punjab is the final
report of the Committee for Coordination on Disappearances in Punjab (CCDP),
which focuses on human rights abuses that occurred in the period from
1984 to 1994. This report, as Peter Rosenblum suggests in the preface,
is the “ground work for an honest retelling of a tragic part of
history”. It is an attempt to tell the truth about political killings,
enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrests and prolonged
unlawful detentions that became the stock-in-trade of the
anti-insurgency operations in Punjab. It reveals the complex denial by
the state agencies and their defenders and the institutional
participation in the scheme of impunity. It does not take sides on the
political guilt or innocence of the victims; eschews rhetoric and,
significantly, stays clear from the quicksand of political solutions.
The report, however, lays bare the parallelism of the rhetoric of rights
and the reality of extreme human rights abuses that bedevils the Indian
democratic paradigm.
It may be asked why another report on Punjab? It could be justifiably
argued that already much has been written about the abuse of human
rights in Punjab and that by raking up all this once again we might
jeopardise the process of “healing”. But as we know, the silence of
graveyard that obtains in Punjab today is not a reflection of peace. The
enquiry being conducted by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC),
under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of India, in the
disappearances and illegal cremations in Punjab, shows the deep social
divisions that is endangering the prospects of justice and peace in the
state. Every attempt to bring justice to the victims, reform the
institutions in order to achieve transparency, structural equality and
democracy has been frustrated by powerful persons linked with the
pervious administration that perpetrated the horrible abuses in the
mistaken belief of defending the integrity of the state. Their demand
for amnesty has found support in the highest quarters of the Indian
government. On 19 August 2001, the Union home minister spoke at a
function organized by the Hind Samachar group of newspapers at Jalandhar
to announce that the government was “contemplating steps to provide
legal protection and relief to the personnel of the security forces
facing prosecution for alleged excesses during anti-insurgency
operations” in Punjab, Kashmir and the north-eastern provinces of India.
According to a report in The Asian Age, the Union Home Minister
indicated “some form of general amnesty” and suggested that “forces
deployed to combat terrorism anywhere in the country must be given
special rights and powers”. K. P. S. Gill, former director- general of
Punjab police welcomed the move and, according to a story in The Indian
Express, repeated his charge that the cases against police officers
“were based on concocted evidence by the investigating agencies acting
under undue and extra-constitutional pressures”. The home minister’s
announcement was hailed also by the Communist Party of India (CPI) and
the Congress Party, which promised to “withdraw all the cases against
the innocent cops” if voted to power. The subsequent state assembly
elections in Punjab returned the Congress party to power and its
government in the state is led by Amarinder Singh, the scion of Patiala
royalty who converted the issue of amnesty to police officials into an
election pledge. It is in this context and the declared positions on
impunity by both the state and the Union government that the NHRC will
have to weigh the evidence of human rights crimes offered in this volume
of the report before proceedings in the matter of abductions leading to
illegal cremations by the Punjab police in Amritsar district
The decade of political violence has left behind a large number of
victims who are still seeking justice. These people are trapped in a web
of fear, rumour and myth. They need to be released from the psychology
of the victim-hood. But their journey from the bewilderment of shattered
lives under a complex political conspiracy to a position of purposeful
survival is not possible without the acknowledgment of what happened.
The complex denial of truth not only serves the purpose of making
atrocities invisible, it also makes the experiences of atrocities
irrevocable. It also compromises the process of healing and keeps the
state embedded in the culture of impunity. It is the most serious
roadblock in the path of transition from conflict to sustainable peace,
from repression to democracy. As N. J. Kritz has noted, “The assumption
that individuals and groups that have been victims of hideous atrocities
will simply forget about them or expunge their feelings without some
form of accounting, some semblance of justice, is to leave in place the
seeds of future conflict.”
The data contained in this volume shows troubling contributions to
police impunity at all levels of the state and national government and
judiciary. For example, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI),
India’s premier investigative agency, failed to seriously and properly
investigate the matter of illegal cremations as entrusted to it by the
Supreme Court in 1995. At the conclusion of their investigation, the CBI
submitted three lists of identified, partially identified and
unidentified cremations conducted by the police. These lists reveal
several discrepancies. The CBI failed to identify persons it easily
could have identified from complaints filed by victim families,
interviews with them, police records, and press reports; it duplicated
records and listed persons who had been cremated by their families, not
by the police; and it failed to properly investigate the cremations of
additional persons reported as having died in the same encounters and
also the cremations of others listed under the same police reports.
Thus, it did not go beyond the police records to examine the actual
extent of illegal cremations in Amritsar district.
The report also shows how the police regularly and openly flouted legal
procedures for arrest and search. The police failed to respond to
families’ requests for information regarding the abducted persons; they
extorted money from victim families and they travelled outside of their
jurisdiction to capture people. The volume documents the prevalence of
custodial torture and traces the patterns of its use against family
members, the police’s destruction, expropriation or damage of property
belonging to victim families and the complicity of the judiciary in
ensuring impunity for custodial torture and death.
The defenders of impunity in Punjab have been vocal against the human
rights litigation that seeks accountability and restitution of hideous
abuses of power. On 8 June 2001, K. P. S. Gill published an article in
the Hindustan Times titled “Man in Uniform Demands Justice”. The article
argued that “those who risked their lives in the defence of the state”
are being subject to “a humiliating process of prosecution in a
multiplicity of cases that were intentionally and maliciously lodged …
as a strategy of vendetta by the front organizations of the defeated
terrorist movement”. Gill asked: “How long will men continue to fight
and to die for India, if no one in the country speaks for the men in
uniform? Can the power of the state survive the erosion of the
confidence and authority of those who protect it?”
This rhetoric of morale and the national security is evidence of
attempts to thwart the process of accountability. In his foreword to a
book titled Human Rights and the Indian Armed Forces, Gill criticised
the “systematic adoption of human rights litigation as a weapon against
agencies of the state by criminals and by violent groups who themselves
reject democracy and seek the overthrow of lawful and elected
government”. According to him: “An overwhelming proportion of public
interest human rights litigation is today being initiated by front
organizations of criminal conglomerates and of virulent underground
terrorist movements in a systematic strategy to harass and paralyse
security forces and the police.”
In this context it is important to note what the El Salvador Commission
on Truth noted in the introduction of its 1993 report: “A situation of
repeated criminal acts may arise in which different individuals act
within the same institution in unmistakably similar ways independently
of political ideology of the government and decision makers. This gives
reason to believe that the institutions may indeed commit crimes, if
clear-cut accusations are met with a cover-up by the institution to
which the accused belonged and the institution is slow to act when
investigations reveal who is responsible. In such circumstances, it is
easy to succumb to the argument that repeated crimes mean that the the
institution is to blame.” Clearly it is necessary to prosecute such
individuals who formulated, planned and organised grave human rights
abuses in the name of national security. The Nuremberg Trial established
this principle internationally.
A public knowledge of the truth is therefore necessary not only to
release the victims from the past, it is also required for strengthening
the legitimacy of the healing process initiated by a new regime for
augmenting society’s commitment to justice. Without acknowledgement of
what has happened, the circle of impunity and injustice cannot be broken
and the impartiality and independence of the judicial mechanisms --
trials and legal tribunals -- and the rule of law cannot be restored.
Justice is both a means of ensuring accountability for grave human
rights abuses and a preventive, deterrent mechanism.
Outline of the Report
Chapter One of the report, Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human
Rights, explains the origins of the CCDP’s work and the early evidence
of mass illegal cremations. It gives a narrative history of Punjab and
its human rights inspirations, intertwining the family history of
Jaswant Singh Khalra, and ends with the details of his disappearance and
the on-going trial of the accused officers.
Chapter Two of the report, Impunity by All Means: Rights and the
Dead-Ends of Law, gives a description of the extent and depth of
impunity for these human rights violations. The chapter provides an
explanation of the need for a public discourse amidst the banning of the
privately-established people’s commission. Next, it gives a detailed
examination of the legislative apparatus of counter-insurgency. Chapter
Two also discusses the development and reorganization of the Punjab
police during the counter-insurgency operations. This section reproduces
an interview with a senior police official, describing the brutal
details of the torture and death of a Sikh religious leader as well as
the patterns and practices of police abuse. The chapter concludes with
an in-depth factual and legal analysis of the on-going proceedings
before the NHRC. This chapter demonstrates how all procedures of law in
India have failed to address the violations of fundamental rights in
Punjab and have contributed to police impunity.
While Chapter Three explains the methodology used by CCDP in its
investigative work, Chapter Four analyses the data presented in this
volume. It focuses on explaining trends and highlighting specific
examples on the following issues: The characteristics of the
investigation by the CBI; abuse of police powers; implications of the
Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1987; use of
custodial torture; role of Indian armed forces; violations of property
rights; complicity of the lower judiciary; and the issues of
medico-legal ethics.
Chapter Five presents specific information about the personal and
political backgrounds of 672 victims and the circumstances in which the
victims disappeared or were executed before being cremated by the
police. All the cases draw from the CBI’s lists being adjudicated before
the NHRC and focus on Amritsar district - one out of 17 districts in
Punjab. Although this matter of police abductions leading to illegal
cremations was initiated six years ago before the NHRC, the commission
unfortunately has failed to examine a single case of abuse. It has also
not heard a single victim’s testimony or deposition. The volume
concludes with an Endnote: Reflections and Recommendations, as well as a
collection of appendices.
We hope that the CCDP will subsequently release the second volume of its
final report, presenting its investigative material on another 1,190
cases of extra-judicial executions or disappearances drawn from all of
Punjab.
Goals
The victims of political violence are frequently neglected. The
governing elite – the politicians, the bureaucracy and the military tend
to forget them. This report is an attempt to make the victims visible.
It lays bare their experiences, expectations and fears in the hope that
they will be acknowledged and the violators punished. This is central to
the moral recovery of the victims and the society as a whole. As J.P.
Lederach points out, by telling and hearing of these stories, we as a
people will be able to validate the experiences and feelings of the
victims, restore their dignity and assist them to re-enter society as
equal partners”. Truth telling is the foundation for reconciliation of
deep social and political divide. This work is being done by the truth
and reconciliation commissions in many war-torn countries. This is the
core of transitional justice. Experiences of the truth and
reconciliation commissions worldwide underline the importance of truth
telling for ensuring that impunity for violations are broken so that the
aspiration of “never again” is realised and national reconciliation is
achieved.
The goals of the South Asia Forum for Human Rights in bringing out this
report are:
• To give the victims a voice by presenting their testimonies of human
rights abuse;
• To strengthen the NHRC’s efforts to move forward in the adjudication
of issues and determination of facts within the mandate in this matter
of police abductions leading to secret illegal cremations in Punjab,
which it received from the Supreme Court in December 1996;
• To shift the discourse on human rights in Punjab from the rhetoric to
an examination of the facts and the law;
• To create a national memory of mass atrocities based on verifiable
records so that the victims and their deaths do not become obfuscated
events;
• To encourage the human rights community and other victims of human
rights abuses in India to develop a larger solidarity and the
programmatic clarity for building a human rights culture based on
justice;
• To ask the international community to intervene to encourage India to
fulfil its obligations to protect fundamental human rights; and
• To define issues for further analysis and research.
Tapan Bose
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