This report was written by Patricia Gossman, research associate for Asia Watch, on the basis of research undertaken during a fact- finding mission to Punjab and New Delhi, India ,by Grossman James A Goldstone, anatomy in November and December 1990,
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INTRODUCTION
For more than a decade the state of Punjab in northern India has been one of the bloodiest conflicts in India’s post-independence history. The origins of the conflict lie in a power struggle between political leaders who represent the state’s majority Sikh population and central government politicians eager to maintain control over the resources of one of the country’s most prosperous states.
In the early 1980s, a movement by Sikh leaders for greater autonomy turned violent when some militant Sikhs embarked on a campaign of terror, murdering elected officials, civil servants, and Hindu and Sikh civilians, Nineteen-eighty- four marked a turning point in the conflict. In June of that year, the Indian army stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the Sikhs holiest shrine, which had been turned into an armed for- tress by the militants. Thousands were killed, including many civilians. Outraged by the assault, some separatist Sikhs demanded an independent state of Khalistan. On October31, 1984, Sikh bodyguards assassinated Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and in the aftermath of her death, mobs slaughtered thousands of Sikhs in New Delhi and other cities across Northern India. The connivance of local officials in the massacres and the failure of the authorities to prosecute the killers alienated many ordinary Sikhs who had not previously supported the separatist cause.
Since then, the security forces have adopted increasingly brutal methods to stem the insurgency, including arbitrary arrests, torture, prolonged detention without trial, disappearances and summary killings of civilians and suspected militants. Government troops have also violated the laws of war which prohibit at- tacks on civilians.
At the same time, violence by militant organizations has escalated. Nine major organizations and perhaps a dozen or smaller groups, acting independently of and sometimes at cross-purposes with one another, have targeted civil servants, journalists, and Hindu and Sikh civilians. While the major groups are organized into guerrilla forces with an identifiable command structure, others operate as criminal gangs who find in the political crisis a lucrative business in extortion and arms smuggling. Some of the militants have also flagrantly violated the laws of war prohibiting violence against civilians, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians.
Efforts by Sikh political leaders and central government officials to negotiate a political settlement have had little success. The stalemate has been due in part to the central government’s failure to follow through with promised reforms and measures to meet Sikh demands. Moreover, since 1984 the security forces have been granted increased powers to ‘crush the militants, and officials have turned a blind eye to reports of abuse. As a result, while the original demands of Sikh politicians centered on issues of regional autonomy, these concerns have grown in response to the government’s repressive policy and now include demands for the release of persons detained without charge, investigations into institutionalized human rights abuses and prosecutions of those responsible for the killings of Sikhs in 1984.
For its part, the Sikh political leadership, torn by internal rivalries, has been unwillingly to distance itself publicly from the militants. ‘The reasons for this reluctance are clear: Sikh leaders who have negotiated with the government have either lost political power or have been assassinated. By taking up genuine grievances that Sikh politicians had failed to address and enforcing their will through terror, the militants have all but eliminated any moderate political rivals for power.
Violence in the state by all parties reached unprecedented levels by late 1990. By year’s end some 4,000 persons were reported to have been killed, and at least half were civilians. An Asia Watch delegation visited Punjab and New Delhi in November and December 1990. The team traveled throughout large parts of the state-including the particularly violent border districts, of Amritsar and Gurdaspur—interviewing lawyers, journalists, human rights activists, farmers, traders, and other Punjab’s. Asia Watch also interviewed many Hindu families who had fled to relief camps in New Delhi. Subsequently, Asia Watch asked the government of India to respond to a number of questions concerning human rights conditions in Punjab. By the time this report went to print, no response had been received. The finding of the Asia watch mission are contained in this report, along with recommendations to the government of India and the militant groups operating in Punjab.
In this report, Asia Watch has documented 29 extrajudicial executions in which the security forces falsely claimed that the victims were killed in “en-counters”. In addition, in this report Asia Watch has documented 12 disappearances committed by the security forces, 32 cases of torture by the security forces and the deaths of seven persons in indiscriminate killings by the security forces.
Asia Watch has also identified 45 police officers and other security personnel whom eyewitnesses have named as participating in or supervising torture or who ‘were responsible for the detention of persons who were subsequently killed in “en- counters” or disappeared. A list of those names appears in the appendix.
Asia Watch directly investigated 38 extrajudicial executions of civilians by militant groups. Details on an additional 32 assignations and indiscriminate killings by armed groups in which at least 221 civilians were killed are included in this report.
These cases are illustrative. There were far more violent abuses in each of these categories than it was possible for Asia Watch to document.
This report is the third which Asia Watch has published on human rights in India. Many of the recommendations we have made previously also apply to Punjab; these include instituting independent investigations into reports of human rights violations, prosecuting security personnel responsible for abuses, amending or repealing security legislation that suspends safeguards against abuses, and abiding by international humanitarian law governing internal armed conflict Such measures are not likely to be taken, however, until the civil authorities in Punjab and the administration in New Delhi demonstrate the will and the ability to exert control over the security forces. Their failure to do so until now and to address widespread corruption in the police has encouraged rampant abuses, which in turn have provoked further violence by the militants and criminal violence by other armed groups.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 4, 1991
