LUDHIANA: Even as the deadline set by the militants associated with the Panthic Committee (Dr. Sohan Singh) on the life of Romanian diplomat, Liviu Radu, passed the Punjab Police continued kidnapping the kith and kin of the militants to exert pressure on them for the safe release of Radu.
The Punjab Human Rights Organization Chairman, D.S.Gill, in the meantime, condemned the police action.
According to the PHRO Chairman, the Jalandhar police, instead of setting free the illegally detained sister Kulwant Kaur of the K.L.F leader, Dr Pritam Singh Sekhon and her eight-month-old son, had sealed her husband’s D.S.Trading Co. dealing in tractor parts at BMC Chowk, Jalandhar, and picked up an employee from there in the absence of her husband.
“The matter did not end there. The police broke open the house of her sister Karamjit Kaurin Mode! Town. locality of the city”, said Gill adding that kidnapping of several relatives of KLF Chief Gurjant Singh Budhsinghwala and KCF General Paramjit Singh Panjwar by the police has been reported to the PHRO- headquarters here.
Strongly condemning the kidnap- ping by the police, the PHRO wondered how the kith and kin of the militants would exercise their influence on them to release Radu when they themselves had been made victims of the police repression.
The PHRO has urged the administration to immediately release the kidnapped relatives of the militants as acts of kidnapping by militant groups cannot justify the police resorting to such abuses themselves.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 8, 1991
