A team of the Nari Manch (Womens Forum), Punjab, consisting of Dr Jiwan Jot (Convenor Nari Manch and Vice President of PHRO), Mrs Kamal Sandhu, BA.LL.B and Ganpat, Advocate visited Batala and Ludhiana areas to document police atrocities on women. The team interviewed the affected persons, Sarpanchs (village heads), social workers and intellectuals of the area. The team was informed about many cases of police atrocities but this report is mainly about police cases concerning women.

  1. Women are being harassed by the male police. There is no lady police in many thanas (Police stations) and women are taken to police thanas accompanied by male police only. No sarpanch is informed before women are taken away. They are kept in illegal custody for days together.
  2. Police come to villages and interrogate women like criminals. They are beaten, kicked and molested by the male police. Even the pregnant women are not spared. In the police thana they are abused, molested and physically harassed. The women taken in custody range from teenagers to old ladies. One incident has come to the Committees’ notice where police has stripped naked and was made to parade in the thana. There are many more cases where women burst in tears instead of narrating their tales. Their tears tell the tales but they are hesitant to narrate the actual happening in the thanas due to social consequences involved specially in cases of unmarried girls. A case came to our notice where a married girl was divorced after she was maltreated in the thana due to this reason only.
  3. Two categories of women are taken to police custody. First, of those families who are doubted as labourers or where “terrorists” stay at gun- point. Second, women related to those families whose sons or other relatives have joined the ranks of “terrorists”. The molestation of women in both the categories is done to demoralize the people so that no one dare raise their voice against any type of injustice by the state.

An incident at Sarchur is a glaring example of these phenomena of demoralizing the people. Here the Senior Superintendent of Police Batala, Gobind Ram forced people of Sarchur and adjoining village to collect at a focal point and beat all the youth ruthlessly. Then, they were forced to abuse Surjit Kaur, an Akali Leader who was in jail for the last six months, and her daughters. When an ex-serviceman S. Charan Singh refused to abuse village daughters, he was taken in custody and kept in thana for three days. Gobind Ram threatened that if villagers dared raise their voice, next time he will repeat the same with village women. The S.S.P also threatened that he would make Surjit Kaur parade naked as and when she comes out of jail. Certain families have sent their daughters away to their relatives.

In another incident at Padda village, Ajit Singh Shah’s family was beaten and kicked. The women and men were stripped naked and make to stand alongwith each other. Even the dupattas of these women were taken away from their heads forcibly. The Panchayat members of village Padda were beaten ruthlessly and forced to draw lines on earth with their noses and then take to Gurdwara and forced to abuse themselves as well as “terrorists” on the mike.

In another case a brother, Amarjit Singh, was forced to beat his own sister Amarjit Kaur in Batala Sadar thana.

The committee has noted an entirely new kind of phenomenon. Certain armed gangs have been raised by the police who are responsible for many incidents of atrocities as well as looting and when people go to the police to lodge F.I.R no notice of the complaints are taken. Glaring example of this phenomenon is the case of village Mari Buchian where Nihang Ajit Poohla, a pet of Gobind Ram, along with his nearly 40 armed goondas attacked the family of Sardar Bhagwant Singh, who was not at home that day, and his younger brother Sardar Harpal Singh. His wife Maninderjit Kaur and old mother and father were beaten mercilessly.

We feel the extent of repression has crossed all limits of civilized behavior in Punjab. Although we have covered only two areas, out of which Batala area shows peak of the graph, but we feel this is the general trend of repression in Punjab today.