Human Rights Activist abducted Hon. Dan Burton (IN) In The House of Representatives From the Congressional Record

Mr. Burton of Indiana: Mr. Speaker, once again the Indian Government has shown its blatant disrespect for basic human rights. On September 6, 1995, Mr. Jaswant Singh Kahira, the general secretary of the Human Rights Wing (Shiromani Akali Dal) was washing his car in front of his house in Amritsar Punjab. When he was taken away by police in a van. The police have refused to reveal Mr. Khaira’s whereabouts. He has not been brought before a magistrate, Amnesty International has expressed fear that he may be tortured.

Mr. Khalra had been instrumental in exposing the fact that 25,000 Sikhs have been cremated in Punjab, Khalistan, and then listed as unidentified while their families continue to await any word about them, Some of my colleagues and I have brought these cremations to the attention of the House previously.

They are being done to destroy evidence of a campaign of extrajudicial killings in Punjab. ‘The superintendent of police in Taran Taran district of Punjab, Khalistan, has been quoted as saying “We have made 25,000 disappear. It is easy to make one more disappear.” According to Amnesty International, this threat was made shortly after Mr. Khalra filed a petition in court on behalf of the cremated Sikhs. This is not an idle threat. The Indian regime is quite capable of making Mr. Khalra disappear without a trace.

Mr. Khalra’s “disappearance” appears to be part of a pattern of increased repression instituted by the Indian Government in the wake of the assassination of Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh. According to newspaper reports and Sikh leader Sharanjit Singh Mann, who has himself been a victim of the regime’ s repression, both the central government and the state government of Punjab have resorted to mass arrests in the wake of the assassination. But Mr. Mann warned that this repression will be counterproductive and he is correct. Another wave of massive human rights violations against the Sikh people will only produce more suffering and more hatred.

Amnesty International has issued an urgent action bulletin seeking an independent and impartial inquiry to establish Mr. Khalra’s whereabouts and assurances that, if in police custody, he be allowed immediate access to lawyers and relatives and be promptly brought before a magistrate. If India is the democracy it claims to be, these actions are the feast the regime can do.

Since 1984, the Indian regime has repeatedly killed more than 120,000 Sikhs. In addition, the regime has killed over 150,000 Christians’ in Nagaland since 1947, over 48,000 Kashmiri Muslims since 1988, tens of thousands of Assamese, Manipuris, and others, and thousands of Dalits, or black untouchables. The State Department reported in its county report for 1994 that between 1991 and 1993, theregime paid over 41,000 cash bounties to police officers for killing Sikhs, Mr. Khalra’s disappearance is part of a pattern of repression that belles India’s claim to be a democracy.

In the face of this kind of repression, leaders of the Sikh Nation declared independence on October 7, 1987, claiming a separate, sovereign country of. Khalistan, India’s brutal occupation of Khalistan has only led to continued bloodshed and repression. That serves nobody’s interest, Mr. Khalra’s disappearance demonstrates yet again that the Indian Government has not done anything to bring the human rights abuses to a stop. Only when the repression and bloodshed and can peace, prosperity, and stability be restored to the Indian subcontinent. I urge the Indian regime to release Jaswant Singh Khalra and all other political prisoners.

Article extracted from this publication >>  September 22, 1995