WASHINGTON: Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) and a bipartisan group of 32 CO-sponsors have introduced HR 1425. the Human Rights in India Act, which would cut off over $70 million in U.S. developmental aid to India due to that country’s massive violations of human rights.
The bill finds that in India, tens of thousands of political prisoners, including prisoners of conscience, are being held without charge or trial under special or preventive detention laws. “Il prohibits development aid to India in any year unless the President certifies within nine months that all prisoners of conscience have been released, that all political prisoners are being brought to trial “promptly and fairly” and “have prompt access 10 legal counsel and family members.” that the practice of torture by police and security forces has been eliminated that all charges of torture and deaths in custody are investigated impartially, that the whereabouts of all persons who disappeared” is established, that members of the police or security forces who torture prisoners or treat them improperly are prosecuted, that Indian citizens who are critical of the regime are free to travel abroad and return to India, that “human rights monitors are not targeted for arrest or harassment by the military and police forces of India,” and that human rights organizations and the international media have access to all parts of the country. None of these conditions currently exists in the world’s largest democracy.”
The State Department reports that from 1991 to 1993, the Indian regime paid over 41,000 cash bounties to police officers for killing Sikhs. A report from Human Rights Watch/ Asia quoted a former Punjab police officer as saying that in his five years in the Punjab police, about 500 people had been killed at his police station alone. Another police officer says that 4000 to 5000 persons were tortured at his station over the same period. The Indian regime maintains over 200 such stations in Punjab, Khalistan. Since 1984, the Indian regime as murdered over 120,000 Sikhs.
Former Member of Parliament Simranjit Singh Mann has been held in an Indian prison since being arrested in the middle of the night on January 5. Mann, the most popular Sikh leader in Punjab, Khalistan, was arrested because of a December 26 speech in which he asked a crowd of 50.000 Sikhs to raise their hands if they supported a peaceful, democratic, nonviolent movement to liberate Khalistan. Khalistan is the independent Sikh homeland declared on October 7, 1987. All 50,000 raised their hands. Mann was arrested under India’s repressive “Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act” (TADA), a law which has been described by the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Center as “not a law at all, but a tool of absolute repression.” TADA permits the summary arrest of anyone arbitrarily deemed to be a “militant.” That person can be held for up to a year without charge, trial, or access to legal counsel.
TADA is only part of a pattern of Indian atrocities against the Sikh nation and others. Indian newspapers have recently reported that 25,000 bodies have been cremated and listed as unclaimed by the Indian regime since 1990. Records from 1986 to 1994 show 1135 unidentified bodies at the Patti cremation grounds, 1915 at the crematorium in Taran Taran, and 2967 in Amritsar city, for a total of 6017 in the Amritsar district. This is just one of 13 districts. These Sikhs were brutally tortured and murdered by the Indian police, then cremated to hide the evidence.
Sikhs are not the only ones who have suffered from brutal oppression. Just recently, 16 Christian missionaries were arrested by the Indian regime. A nun in Madhya Pradesh was stabbed 36 times by a Hindu fundamentalist, apparently with the encouragement of the local authorities. The Indian regime has murdered over 150,000 Christians in Nagaland since 1947. over 43,000 Muslims in Kashmir since 1988, and tens of thousands of Assamese, Manipuris, and other tribal people. These groups also seek their freedom from India.
Sponsors of the bill, in addition to Rep. Burton, include Rep. Robert Terricelli (D-NJ), Rep. Christopher Cox (R-CA), Rep. Floyd Flake (DNY), Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Rep. James Moran (D-VA), Rep. Peter King (R-NY), Rep William. Jefferson (D-LA), Rep Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Rep. Mel Reynolds (D-IL), Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Rep Gary Condit (D-CA), Rep Jack Fields (R-TX), Rep Edolphus Towns (DNY), Rep John Doolittle (R-CA), Rep Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), Rep Richard Pombo (R-CA), Rep Collin Peterson (D-MN), Rep Randy Cummingham (R-CA), Rep William Lipinski (D-IL), Rep Philip Crane (RIL), Rep Wally Herger (R-CA), Rep Enid Greene Waldholtz (R-UT), Rep Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), Rep David Funderburk (R-NC), Rep Richard Hastings (R-WA). Rep Walter Jones Jr(R-NC), Rep Ken Calvert (R-CA). Rep Steve Stockman (R-TX), Rep Pete Geren (D-TX), Rep Charles Wilson (D-TX), and Rep. Ileana RosLehtinen (R-FL).
“We are very excited about this bill,” said Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh, President of the Council of Khalistan. “It is encouraging to see that so many members
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Article extracted from this publication >> April 21, 1995
