By Our Correspondent AMRITSAR: The Punjab Courts have proved helpless to take any action against eleven policemen who tortured two Sikh women four years ago.

Dhan Kaur and her daughters Surjit Kaur have been doing all they can to get some action against the policemen who tortured them and detained them four years ago. They sold chunks of their land their ormaments and have been threatened by policemen but there brave jatis of Punjab are still undeterred in their quest for justice.

They have filed a petition under public interest litigation in the Punjab High Court on May 13.

With tears in her eyes Dhan Kaur narrated the incident. She and her daughter were picked up

at Sarhali bus stand where they had gone to get medicine on September 23, 1984.

Illegally Kept For 20 Days

Police tortured them and kept them in custody till October 12 when the Punjab high court ordered their release, The police kept an accusing them of being thieves.

Then started the prolonged litigation and these women, who hail from the border village of Rattoke in Taran Taran district say they are determined to “teach a lesson to the guilty policemen.

Medical Examination

The Warrant Officer, who was deputed by the High Court to go into the case had noted in his report that the two were illegally detained in the police station and were tortured. After a medical examination the victims filed a complaint on October 10, 1984, in a court at Tarn Tara a. The case had since been shutting between the special courts at Amritsar and Jalandhar. Every time the courts keep on summoning the 1] policemen named in the complaint. However none of them has appeared in the court even once. After 70 fruit less summonses the accused were ordered to appear through bailable warrants. Even non-bailable war rants and warrants of attachment of their salaries had no effect.

Police Excuse

Then the warrants were sent through the Sessions Judge Amritsar to the SSP to procure the presence of the accused. But these were returned on the excuse that the accused had been transferred and their destinations could not be disclosed for security reasons. Letters were also sent to the Deputy Inspector General and Director General of Police by the court but to no avail,

In her petition, a copy of which has also been forwarded to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Dhan Kaur has demanded directions to the State Government to compel the accused persons to appear in a competent court of law within a stipulated period and that the personal appearance of the petitioner should be exempted in view of her inability to bear the expenses on litigation any longer. The petitioner has also urged that she should be paid Rs 100,000 lakh as compensation for the torture.

Article extracted from this publication >>  May 19, 1989