(WSN will over the next few
weeks publish excerpts of this
comprehensive report)
INRODUCTION:-
Thousands of people have been arrested by police and security forces in Punjab since 1983, when armed Sikh opposition groups emerged demanding an independent Sikh state (“Khalistan”) in Punjab, Prisoners have been kept detained for months or years without trial under provisions of special legislation suspending normal legal safeguards. There are many reports of torture during interrogation. The arrest and detention of some detainee’s remains unacknowledged for weeks or months, Records of arrests of people held for interrogation have either not been kept by police or their existence has been denied when judicial officials or relatives asked for them. In some cases, the police reported that the people concerned had been killed in armed “encounters”, even after they were seen by witnesses to be arrested. In other cases, the police finally acknowledged the arrests, but claimed that the detainees had “escaped”. Scores of people have simply “disappeared”, the security forces refusing: o acknowledges that they had ever been arrested. It is feared that many of them may have been killed in custody.
There is a clear pattern to the arrests, detentions, torture and “disappearances” described in this report. Often, people have been arrested on mere suspicion that they are linked to armed Sikh opposition groups. Those tortured in police custody tend to be people suspected of having links with such groups, of having information about them or harboring them. In some cases parents, brothers or sisters of suspects have been arbitrarily detained and tortured in order to extract information about their relatives’ whereabouts or activities. Those tortured are young people and the elderly, and some are women the torture testimonies of a 17year-old girl and a 60-year-old man are included in this report.
Sources of information
To date, Amnesty International has not been granted permission to visit Punjab to verify reports of human rights violations in the state or to discuss such reports with the relevant state officials, although foreign parliamentarians and an ambassador were able to do so in 1990. The previous Congress (I) government of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, in office from 1984 until late 1989, categorically denied Amnesty International access to Punjab. It also failed to respond to Amnesty International’s numerous appeals for investigations into specific allegations of arbitrary arrests, torture and extrajudicial executions and of “disappearances” after arrest. Although Prime Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh’s National Front coalition government announced in July 1990 that Amnesty International representatives could come to India for private Visits or (0 meet the government, no dates were set for such meetings, nor was Amnesty International granted permission to visit Punjab before the government fell in November 1990, Amnesty International delegates attending the World Congress on Human Rights in New Delhi in December 1990 renewed the Organizations request to visit Punjab when they met the Cabinet Secretary and the Foreign Secretary. They were told, however, that access to the state depended on the security situation, that Amnesty International could not travel to Punjab on this occasion but that the possibility of a future visit was not ruled out. Amnesty International renewed its longstanding request to visit Punjab in a letter of 3 April 1991 to the government.
Amnesty International deeply regrets that it has not been able to travel to Punjab to research the many allegations of grave human rights violations in the state, and to obtain information about official steps to stop the abuses, But reports of human rights abuses in Punjab are so serious and have been so persistent that Amnesty International has decided to publish the best documented cases. The organization has already raised many of the cases described in this report with the Indian authorities, The Amnesty International delegation which met the Cabinet Secretary in New Delhi in December 1990 asked for information about specific cases of alleged human rights violations described in this report. Amnesty International repeated this request in a letter to the government in February 1991. As of 1 April no response had been received.
Being unable to verify the numerous allegations of human rights violations in Punjab for itself or to seek clarification from state officials about measures officials say have been taken to halt and prevent human rights abuses, Amnesty International has had to base this report on individual accounts of human rights violations reported in recent years, These accounts are contained in sworn affidavits made by the victims of their relatives, and in reports from civil liberties groups and the Indian news media, which Amnesty International has checked as thoroughly as possible. In several cases the organization has been able to obtain medical records consistent with the allegations of torture, but in only one case was independent medical examination possible, and then only after the victim had left the country. Amnesty International has also drawn on reports, when available, of official judicial inquiries into a few dozen specific cases of alleged human rights violations. Amnesty International does not have details of the outcome of many of these investigations, although the reports of at least six of them have confirmed that human rights violations had taken place.
Background
Sikhs form 2% of India’s total population of $40 million. Most Sikhs live in Punjab, a prosperous agricultural state north-west of New Delhi. The original state was first split between India and Pakistan in 1947, and portions of the Indian state were transferred to the two adjacent Hindi speaking states, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, Among the 12 million inhabitants of Punjab and Sikhs form a majority of about 60%. They have traditionally maintained close family links with the minority Hindu population.
Since Sikh leaders listed their religious, political and economic demands in the 1973 Anandpur Sahib resolution, the movement for greater autonomy or an independent Sikh homeland “Khalistan” (the land of the Pure) gained ground, Originally encouraged by elements within the Congress (I) party, the fundamentalist Sikit leader Sant Jamail Singh Bhindranwale became prominent in the Khalistan movement. He collected armed followers who resorted to violence and operated from the holiest Sikh shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, from where the army removed them by force in June 1984. An estimated 1,000 people, most of them Sikhs, were killed during the military operation, a traumatic experience for the entire Sikh community, The suppression which followed further strengthened Sikh demands, especially after nearly 3,000 Sikh residents in and around New Delhi were killed in the days following the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by Sikh bodyguards in October 1984, Resentment increased when the perpetrators of these revenge killings were not brought to justice.
Successive Indian governments have opposed the creation of an independent Sikh state and insisted that a solution to the Sikh demands must be found within the federalist framework of the Indian Constitution, Faced with mounting acts of political violence in Punjab the Congress (I) government passed in March 1988 the 59th Amendment to the Constitution, permitting the suspension of the right to life in Punjab if a state of emergency was declared.
One of the first acts of the National Front coalition government, after it assumed office in November 1989, was to repeal the 59th Amendment. The government also announced that action would be taken against those responsible for the killings of Sikhs in the aftermath of the assassination of Indira Gandhi. These moves were widely welcomed in Punjab, In January 1991 Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar held talks with some Sikh leaders, but no agreement was reached on the demand for separate status.
Although the Indian Constitution normally limits to one year the period in which any Indian state can be ruled directly by the union government in New Delhi, Punjab has been under continuous direct rule since May 1987. Parliament extended the period of direct rule for the ninth time on 13 March 1991. The last elections to the Punjab state assembly took place in 1985,
The Role of the Security Forces and the Judiciary
Most arrests are mate by police officers, often in plain clothes and using cars without number plates. Arrests and interrogations are also carried out by paramilitary forces stationed in Punjab the Border Security Force (BSF), mainly operating in the districts bordering Pakistan, and the Central Reserve Police force (CRPF). Since May 1990 all security forces in Punjab have operated jointly under the command of the state’s Director-General of Police Nearly Security Guard an elite force mainly recruited from the army and police locally known as the “Black Cats” have also been stationed in Punjab especially in the three border areas Amritsar Gurdaspur and Ferozepur. According to Indian press reports of June 1990 the National Security Guard conduct massive search operations in these border areas to arrest militants and size arms Officials say they are trained to kill.
Since 1986 the Indian press has persistently carried reports that the police have used undercover groups consisting of criminal elements, former or serving policemen with criminal records, or former armed separates won over during detention, in counter-insurgency operations, Sometimes nick-named “cats”, these irregular forces have been charged with obtaining intelligence about armed Sikh groups and arresting and even killing suspected leaders of those identified on police lists. All reports indicate they have been licensed to act with impunity. In a September 1988 interview with the bi-monthly India Today, former Director-General of Police, J.F Ribeiro admitted the police used undercover agents. The Hindustan Times, 12 December 1990, reported that undercover agents continued to operate in the state and were using Weapons provided by the police kidnap local people and extort money from them. For example, Jaswinder Kala of Tamu village in Batala, a former armed separatist who had joined the police, was said to have raised a private army of 11 men and was himself shot after killing or arresting more than 12 militant leaders named on a police list.
Press reports further suggest that police officers themselves sometimes act in the guise of members of armed Sikh groups to extort money from villagers:” it is not unusual for the police to carry their regulation 303 rifles during the day and a Kalashnikov the favored weapon of the armed Sikh separatists at night, as they too take to extortion. They then return in the morning and threaten the families for dealing with the terrorists. If the families cannot meet their demands for money the police round up all the young men” (Far Eastern Economic Review, 3 January 1991).
Amnesty International believes that policies adopted and instructions given by security officials have contributed directly to the human rights violations described in this report. Further, the failure to demonstrate official determination to investigate or hold security personnel accountable for alleged human rights violations may have led to the perpetuation of these practices including extrajudicial execution disappearance arbitrary detention and torture.
On 30 August 1989 the Director-General of Police Punjab issued an order to all district police superintendents in the state promising financial rewards for the liquidation of 53 men described as terrorists.
(The text of the order is reproduced in Appendix A). In April 1990 the new Attorney General told the Supreme Court that the order had lapsed. However Amnesty International revived reports that at least six of the men listed had been killed by the police or members of the security forces. It is widely believed that the order was a direct incitement to the police to extra judicially execute those named on the list and to attribute the killings to encounters killings officials in Punjab and elsewhere have acknowledged that such extrajudicial execution occur. The Governor of Punjab for example issued an appeal to police officer in June 1990 to stop fake encounters. More over if the encounter killings occurred during genuine armed clashes claimed by the police there would be substantial if not equal number of victims on both sides.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 31, 1991
