Simanjit Singh Mann is the leader of the Sikh’s peaceful struggle in Punjab to achieve an independent homeland, Khalistan. Mr. Mann is a prisoner of conscience. He is politically inconvenient to India, whose policies, procedures and most societal systems have never stood firm to ensure secular democracy for India’s ethnic minority peoples: peoples who today are reeling under ethnic genocide.
Mr. Mann, renowned internationally for his campaign to restore social justice and dignity to the beleaguered Panjabi Sikh community, has been waging A political and legal battle against the lawless administration of Mr. Beant Singh, his mafia like friends and his family members. It serves the interests of India’s government and Mr. Beant Singh to arrest Mr. Mann. as he is one of the last them of resistance, in Punjab in the side of the totalitarian Indian state. The remaining Sikh dissenting leadership have been murdered, de famed, jailed and tortured, live now in exile or risk being killed when they return to India. In Indi dissent is not addressed in democratic forums, but”stamped-1″ to use the words of its current Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao.
The current Punjab state Chief Minister, Beant Singh is a political puppet of the incumbent New Delhi government. Ho has had Mr. Mann arrested and working with India’s Home Ministry is piling a host of additional charges against Mr. Mann to keep him locked into the quagmire of India’s grid locked judicial system.
Mr. Beant Singh’s administration made headlines in civil liberties reports worldwide immediately following his installation by a more 8% of the people’s votes in 1992. The actives of reoccurring law and order in Punjab have included illegal detention, torture and murder of virtually anyone who has opposed him of his Director General of Police, K.P.S.Gill. This has included human rights activists, lawyers, doctors, a retired chief justice and a former Jathodar of the Sikhs holiest shrine, the Akal Takht.
Mr. Mann, was detained in 1984, charged under several cases including conspiracy to assassinate Mrs. Indira Gandhi, was severely tortured, kept in solitary confinement and was unconditionally released with all charges dropped after five years in prison. He was released officially “in the interests of the State,” in November 1989 after being elected in absentia to India’s Parliament by an overwhelming mandate by an outraged, angry and repressed Sikh community. Mr. Mann was denied his legal and constitutional right to enter parliament.
Two years ago, in May 1993, while campaigning in support of a candidate during the Jalandhar by-elections, an assassination attempt was made on Mr. Mann by the gunman of a politician in the ruling Indian National Congress Party. No charges were ever brought against the assassination bid.
On January 5, 1995, the Punjab Police arrested him under First Information Report (FIR) No. 108 dated Dec.26,1994. When he was produced in the courts the following morning, he had already been charged under two more FIRs. When the state learned that Mr. Mann’s counsel, Mr. Ranjan Lakhanpal and Mr. Hardev Singh Rao are applying for bail, the police department reopened cases registered against him during the last three years, including one registered in 1985. As many as 11 cases are being pursued. The intentions are clear. Simranjit Singh Mann will not be allowed to be released from prison.
It is pertinent to mention that except the above-mentioned FIR, Simranjit Singh Mann was never intimated about the pendency of the charges under so many FIRS registered in so many places in the Punjab, Neither the police nor the courts informed him or his party office. In fact, in one of the cases, (FIR No. 71. Police Station Dehlon, Police district Jagraon, District Ludhiana) one of his co-accused, Gurchetan Singh is languishing in prison for two years and seven months. Furthermore, when the Punjab and Haryana High Court was approached for bail in all the cases, a Delhi case of 1985 was brought up, as the jurisdiction of the Punjab court does not extend to Delhi. This charge has now been admitted somehow by the courts, even after the 1989 judgment dismissed all charges unconditionally thitherto.
Mr. Mann has been arrested/detained some 30 times. The arrest record is enclosed with this document. Mr. Mann has never been convicted. Prior to his protest resignation in 1984, attar the government security forces attacked the Sikh’s holy Golden Temple, his professional record with the Indian Police Services illustrated his firm belief in social justice. As a youth, he was a gold medalist winner of history. A national honor. He hails from one of Punjab’s oldest prominent families
Today, in a clear attempt by the Indian State to silence Mr. Marin, several cases have been amassed and placed against him. Of the charges, four cases are under the TADA. This legislation needs no introduction and stands as a classical textbook banana republic draconian law. The TADA has found tens of thousands of Indian citizens murdered by state security forces and today finds thousands more in detention, in wholesale contravention of all humanitarian laws. India employs this law with impunity, as the courts, even India’s Supreme Court (May 1994) have adjudicated in support of its use to ensure the integrity and unity of India. TADA is icing-on-the-cake in portraying India as a total shorn to democratic norms, international humanitarian laws, its own civil laws and constitutional rights.
Daily, in Punjab, the Chief Minister dis. allows fundamental rights to be enjoyed by Punjabi Sikhs Punjabis a police state. Mr. Mann is a victim of India’s national democratic experiment gone awry. Mr. Mann’s arbitrary arrests exceed convention and is textbook example of Hindu Brahmin sectarian-based politics,
Mr. Mann is presently detained in the Patiala Central Prison. There are no window panes to his cell. Medicines and medical treatment as required by him are denied. Party activists are not allowed to visit him in prison. Mr. Mann is taken to courts from the prison in unlicensed and unmarked security vehicles. On Jan 30,1995, when he was to be produced in Ludhiana in connection with FIR No. 71 dated Sept. 11. 1992, he was hand cuffed in complete violation of India’s provisions of law.
Mann clearly is being denied his rights as a prisoner and basic fundamental rights. As both a prisoner of the Indian state and now a prisoner of India’s political security force nexus and bureaucracy, several articles of India’s own Constitution are contravened in order to keep him behind bars. His passport is officially denied to him even after the High Court ordered the State to issue it to him. Simranjit Singh Mann’s right to freedom of speech, freedom of movement, equality before the law, right to practice, pontificate and pro. fess his religion, right to expeditious trial. right to stand innocent until proven guilty – these are but a few natural and universally fundamental rights being denied him. Article 51 of the Indian Constitution obligates India to comply with all international treaties to which it has acceded. Thus, Mr. Mann’s rights are embodied in international humanitarian law are denied him. His right to enjoy peaceful assertion and struggle for sell determination on behalf of the Sikh nation is an internationally accepted right. The Panjab and Haryana High Court has also upheld the right to secede by peaceful means in Pratap Singh Vs. State of Punjab, 1992
In such an atmosphere, his arrest is clearly, arbitrary and politically-inspired His life should be spared. He should be released. Otherwise, assuredly he will one day be eliminated and join the many virtuous in the Punjab who have died already in the struggle against immorally and criminally governed India.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 7, 1995
