A posse of Punjab commandos specially trained to abduct and kill, raised his Amritsar residence on September 6 and abducted Jaswant Singh Khalra, head of Akali Dal (Badal)’s human rights wing. This piece of information is given by members of Khalra’s family. A Delh based human rights group, the committee for information and initiative on Punjab, also confirms the above mentioned fact. Activists of the committee at a media conference at Delh revealed that the Tarn Taran district police kept Khalra at the Sarhali torture center until September 22 and then transferred him to an unknown place. This shifting was done presumably because, in the meanwhile, the committee moved an application in India’s supremecourt seeking information on rights activist’s whereabouts. The court sent notice to Punjab police chief K.P.S. Gill and directed him to file his reply. The Punjab police chief on October 13 denied the abduction charge. But the new advocate general told the court that he would personally help in locating Khalra and the court gave him one month.
Khalra’s abduction has agitated human rights groups all over the world. India has slapped no charges against Khalra so far; Had there been any charge of Khalra’s involvement in violence, India would not have spared him. But the Punjab police chief alleges that Khalra may have been abducted either by some militant group or he may have been taken away by his personal enemies. However, there is no history of any militant group ever abducting any rights activist. The allegation appears to be farfetched and diversionary. As for personal enmity, the family categorically asserts that they have no personal enemies. The Punjab police also indicated the possibility that some Junior police officials own his own may have abducted Khalra. The latter statement appears to be more credible. It is entirely possible that the Tarn Taran police chief is at the back of the abduction. It is well known that the Tam Taran police chief faces allegations of murder. The new Punjab chief minister wanted to shift him on ground of allegations of corruption but was stopped from doing so by the Indian prime minister. It is an open secret that all the 48 police officers facing charges of murder have been allowed to stay in positions of authority in Punjab so that they can take appropriate action to silence witnesses.
This cozy arrangement has been sanctioned by the Prime Minister’s house through its hitman, K.P.S. Gill. The Committee for Information and Initiative on Punjab is of the men that Khalra’s abduction is also connected with the operation white-wash being conducted by the Tam Taran police chief who faces more serious and gruesome charges of mass murders of Sikhs than have surfaced so far. Khalra was associated with private enquiries linking the mass cremations of 3000 Sikhs in Amritsar district between 1992 and 1994 with police abductions of Sikh youths. Khalra’s abduction is thus presumed to be due to the police anxiety to finish off all evidence.
It is evident that the Indian state engineered Nazi-like terror on the Sikhs in the past few years. Only a handful of cases have so far surfaced and criminal cases have been launched against a few police officers, almost all cases at the insistence of the Indian supremecourt and none at the insistence of the Indian central government or the state government. When the reality in full force is brought before the world, the Punjab truly will shake the earth. That is what the Indian state and its prime minister are keen on stopping. Hence the actions like the one involving Khalra’s abduction.
There is yet another angle to the Punjab tragedy. The Indian state deliberately inducted a criminal police officer like K.P.S. Gill in Punjab a few years ago because professional officers like Ribeiro had refused to go to the dirty extent Gill was willing to. The Indian state went to the extent of protecting Gill even when a senior lady officer of Punjab, Rupan Deol, had brought charges, of eve teasing and use of criminal force to outrage her modesty, against Gill. Now after seven years, the Indian supremecourt has ordered Gill’s trial in accordance with law. But the question is: Why did the Indian state protect Gill? The only explanation is that it wanted to use the Punjab police under K.P.S. Gill not only to kill Sikh youths but also to humiliate the Sikh women in police stations which Gill readily did with relish. Thus India introduced in Punjab a sex war as well. When this aspect is revealed in full, the world is likely to see India as a nation.
In the meanwhile, disgrace world public opinion must put pres- sure on India to release Jaswant Singh Khalra, and to put an end to all atrocities on Sikhs.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 20, 1995
