The latest report by Amnesty International entitled ‘India- torture, rape and deaths in custody’, claims that such incidents are “pervasive and a daily routine” in every one of India’s 25 states. Indeed state terrorism has come to Punjab with a vengeance. The Indian authorities have persistently maintained that the Punjab problem is a law and order problem and not a political problem. Hence no attempt is being made to find a political solution.

Indian authorities have laid down Ten Commandments for India’s security forces based in Punjab and currently numbering over 350,000. Thou shalt regard every Sikh as a terrorist, militant and secessionist; thou shalt hold every young Sikh to ransom and extract huge sums of money from his relatives as the price of his freedom; thou shalt not suffer a baptized young Sikh to live; thou shalt kill young Sikhs in false police encounters, thou shalt take the law into your own hands and defy judicial process; thou shalt covet and pillage Sikh properties; thou shalt silence the media and imprison all newspaper editors who report the truth; thou shalt arrest young Sikh women on trumped up charges and torture them; thou shalt rape Sikh women detainees; thou shalt take revenge for your sufferings at the hands of Sikh freedom-fighters on Sikh women and children.

The following report details incidents of torture, rape and murder of four young Sikh women. Aman deep Kaur, aged 19 years, was picked up because she was the sister of a Sikh militant. Her photograph appears on the front cover. The same fate befell Gurdish Kaur and Davinder Kaur, sisters of Kashmir Singh, a village Gurdwara Sikh preacher alleged to have links with militants like Baldev Singh Ghudani. Manjit Kaur (whose photograph appears on the back cover) and who belongs to a disadvantaged Sikh family, was raped simply to satisfy the policemen’s lust. Needless to say no action has been taken against the offending officers. These rapes are yet another chapter in the dark annals of the lawlessness of India’s ‘guardians of law and order’.

The Indian High Commission in London recently claimed that 150 policemen and officers of Punjab police had been sacked for violations of human rights. This is a drop in the ocean, as it represents 0.6Z0f the Punjab’s total police force. At least 90Zof the present force must be sacked if the public is to have any confidence in the integrity of the force. We commend Amnesty International and Asia Watch for their efforts on our behalf. By like token, we condemn the UN Human Rights Commission for their ostrich-like attitude in turning a blind eye to the Sikh Problem.

 

HARJIT SINGH

PRESIDENT

P.H.R.O. (UK)

 

LONDON

28th March 1992