INDIA: Several thousand political prisoners, among them prisoners of conscience, were held without charge or trial under “antiterrorist” or preventive detention laws. Other prisoners of conscience were detained for peaceful Political activities but faced false criminal charges under the Penal Code. Torture and ill treatment were widespread. Over 50 people reportedly died after torture in police custody. Several people “disappeared” after arrest and several hundred may have been extra judicially executed. About a dozen people were believed to have been executed, at least one of whom may have been wrongly convicted.
The Congress Party of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, which lost its majority in the November general elections, was replaced by the minority government of Prime Minister V.P. Singh. The new National Front coalition government pledged “institutional accountability and human rights” and review of thousands of political prisoner cases in Punjab. In December it repealed the 59th Amendment to the Constitution, which permitted suspension of the right to life in Punjab.
In September, before the change of government, the authorities introduced the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, which increases protection for members of the scheduled castes (formerly “untouchables”) and tribes against torture and other abuses. It defines a range of offences as “atrocities”, including wrongfully occupying land allocated to these groups or dispossessing them, forcing them to eat obnoxious substances, and fabricating or destroying evidence in certain types of criminal cases involving members of these groups. People charged under the Act are to be tried by special courts. State governments are required to implement specific measures to prevent “atrocities” and to provide legal aid and expenses for witnesses testifying about alleged abuses. No information on how the new Act was being applied was available,
Direct rule of the state of Punjab from Delhi was extended in October for a further six months. Both Opposition groups and the security forces resorted to widespread violence throughout the year. According to official figures, police killed 495 “terrorists” in the first nine months of the year and Sikh groups demanding a separate state called “Khalistan” killed 764 people. The victims included government and police officials, their relatives and many other Sikh and Hindu civilians. In Andhra Pradesh leftwing revolutionaries killed several police officers and local officials, and held others hostage. Violence by opposition groups supporting demands for independence in Kashmir increased. Violence also increased in Assam, where Bodo tribal people sought a separate state on the north bank of the Brahmaputra.
In March the remaining 188 of the estimated 366 Sikhs detained since 1984 in Jodhpur jail (see Amnesty International Report 1988 and 1989) were released. Most were prisoners of conscience. Upon arrival in Punjab, 84 of them were rearrested. An official commission reviewed their cases and by the end of the year four of them remained in custody on criminal charges. Although the government stated in March that prisoners held in Punjab because of their speeches or writings would be released, several continued to be held without trial until early December. They included Prakash Singh Badal and Gurcharan Singh Tohra, two leaders of the Akali Dal party. Simranjit Singh Mann, arrested in November 1984, was charged in April with two Bombay professors, Jagmohan Singh and Dalip Singh, and a fourth defendant, Atinder Pal Singh with conspiracy to kill the former prime minister, Indira Gandhi, and faced the death penalty if convicted. Before leaving office, the Congress government ordered the release of the first three without giving reasons. The fourth was kept in prison facing criminal charges.
Police seeking suspects in Punjab sometimes detained relatives instead, effectively holding them hostage. Other prisoners of conscience included trade unionists, social welfare workers and human rights activists. Bhimrao Mhaske, a member of the Mahar scheduled caste, who was active in trade union and civil liberties work, was arrested in March for, among other things, urging members of the “adivasi” (tribal) community to exercise their rights, He was charged, under Section 151(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, with inciting the commission of an offence, but a High Court judge ordered his release after two weeks.
Eighteen environmentalists, lawyers and others involved in peaceful protests against the Narmada dam building project and allegedly unfair local labour practices were arrested in Gujarat in January and February. They were charged with “spying” under the 1923 Official Secrets Act but released on bail several days later. In September the President of the Ladakh Buddhist Organization was detained for several weeks after calling for special protection of Buddhists’ rights in Ladakh, part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
In May the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, which provides for special courts to try people in camera and suspends important legal safeguards against arbitrary detention(see Amnesty International Report 1988), was extended for another two years. The Act, which severely limits release on bail, continued to be used extensively to detain thousands of political prisoners. Most were held without charge or trail. They included more than 1,000 suspected supporters of an autonomous Sikh state; dozens of tribal people in the Bastar district, Madhya Pradesh; and tribal people suspected of helping “Naxalites” (Maoist revolutionaries) in Andhra Pradesh. Others detained under the Act included a newspaper editor in Manipur and her five month old baby; several hundred members of the All Bodo Students Union, which has pressed for a separate Bodo land; and hundreds of people suspected of political violence in Kashmir.
The National Security Act (NSA) was also used to detain political prisoners without charge or trial. The Act permits such detention for up to one year. Section 14(a) of the Act, a provision which lapsed in June, permitted such detention for two years in Punjab. Some detainees were denied the opportunity to request review by an advisory board which is empowered to order release from detention.
The extreme prolongation of some political trials has raised questions about protection of the right to fair and prompt trial. For example, 20 prisoners acquitted by a Hyderabad court in February had been among 40 people charged in 1974 with a “Naxalite” conspiracy to overthrow the government. At least 12 different judges had presided over the trial since it began in 1977.
Torture remained widespread, particularly in states with armed opposition to the government. In Punjab suspects under interrogation were said to be routinely tortured. Many of the 780 untried political detainees held in Amritsar Central jail complained to a judge in February that they had been tortured during several weeks of illegal detention in previous months before their arrest was formally acknowledged. Torture was also frequently alleged in Kashmir, and women belonging to tribal groups or scheduled castes in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Assam were reportedly raped while in police custody. In February, 20 members of the Pardhi tribal community in Maharashtra were severely beaten during several weeks of unacknowledged detention one victim died. As in other cases, a local magistrate apparently refused to register their complaints of torture. Such complaints have rarely been investigated, although some officials have acknowledged that torture occurs.
In Manipur witnesses testifying about torture allegedly committed by soldiers of the Assam Rifles in Oinam in 1987 have themselves reportedly been tortured (see Amnesty International Report 1988). One report received during the year described abuses suffered by a witness who testified in court in December 1988. He said he was beaten and given electric shocks, apparently because he brought witnesses to court who testified that Assam Rifles troops had raped them. He complained that a doctor examining him in an Assam Rifles camp where he was detained refused to register his complaint of torture.
At least 50 prisoners died in police custody, nearly all of them shortly after arrest. Many were allegedly tortured, although the Police often attributed deaths to natural causes or suicide. Few of these deaths were officially investigated. Some police officers were ‘suspended or arrested on charges of murder, but none was known to have been brought to trial and convicted during the year for causing the death of a prisoner.
At least 11 political prisoners and criminal suspects “disappeared” after arrest in Punjab. Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Bihar. The police denied the arrests or claimed the “disappeared” person had “run away” from custody. Two of those who had “disappeared” were located after several months in unacknowledged detention. Others were feared to have been killed in custody. No further information was available about the fate of 32 men who “disappeared” in Meerut in 1987 (see Amnesty International Report 1989). The report of an official inquiry into their “disappearance” had still not been published by the end of 1989.
Scores, possibly hundreds, of suspected government opponents were reportedly executed extra judicially by police in Andhra Pradesh and Punjab. The police said all killings occured during “encounters” with armed opponents or during escape attempts by prisoners but evidence suggested that some suspects were killed after arrest in “encounters” staged by in the police. The Punjab police reported that in the two years up to June 1989, 808 suspected “terrorists” and 208 police officers were killed in 907 “encounters”. It was impossible to verify independently the circumstances in which they had occurred.
In July members of the Central Reserve Police entered houses in Kashmir and shot four unarmed bystanders, apparently in retaliation for the killing of two police Officers by suspected Kashmiri secessionists. In October police in Bhir reportedly failed to intervene. When dozens of Muslims were killed by Hindus in the village of Chandheri.
In January Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh, two Sikhs sentenced to death for the murder of former prime minister Indira Gandhi, were hanged at Tihar Jail. Kehar Singh’s conviction appeared to be based on unconvincing circumstantial evidence. An average of about a dozen people a year have been executed in recent years, according to estimates official figures giving numbers of executions carried out annually have not been made available.
The government refused in May Amnesty International’s request for discussions on its human rights concerns in India. In December Amnesty International was again denied permission to attend a nongovernmental human rights conference in Bombay.
During the year Amnesty International worked for the release of prisoners of conscience and for the fair trial of other political prisoners. It took urgent action to clarify several “disappearances” and to prevent executions. It also published reports on the use of the death penalty, on “disappearances” and on human rights violations against underprivileged groups in Bihar and Maharashtra. In a February statement to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Amnesty International drew attention to attempts by security forces to sabotage judicial investigations into abuses in Manipur. In an August submission to the Working. Group on Indigenous Populations of the United Nations. Amnesty International expressed concern that police had raped women belonging to underprivileged groups.
Allegations of human rights abuse by the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka are described under that country.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 24, 1990
