LUDHIANA: The Indian security forces in Punjab detained several hundred elected village sarpanches and panches for questioning in connection with boycott of the February election by the public in the area of their jurisdictions.
India’s action taken at the beck of the Beant Singh government of Punjab followed a list prepared by intelligence agencies which showed that the public response in most of the villagers was almost Cent percent.
India’s rationale for detaining the elected representatives of the affected villages is that the village leaders who made the militant sponsored boycott campaign a thundering success must be mixed up with the militant organizations and that their arrest was called for to find out their links.
The list revealed that in as many as 865 poll booths no one voted. In 71 other booths less than 10 voters voted. These booths constituted a sizable portion of the total booths. Highly affected tehsils by the boycott were Tam Taran and Jagraon. Most of the village sarpanches arrested belongs to these tehsils.
The detention of Sikhs in Indian prisons means the use of third degree methods torture and other grave forms of humiliation and harassment
A sidelight of the detentions is that the action was frowned upon by chief minister Beant Singh when hundreds of complaints reached him because he had not been consulted by the police. He ordered immediate release of the persons arrested but the police dragged their feet.
The chief minister also desired that the guilty police officers should be proceeded against. The police authorities at the top who get direct orders from Delhi and are protected by India from “deference” by the state government ignored the chief minister’s order.
The difficulty with Beant Singh is that it was at his instance that KP.S.Gill the present police chief relented in his decision “leave the state” after the election Now the chief minister finds i difficult to deal too firmly with Gilt who habitually minds the police house without “external interferences” even from the “elected government.”
Article extracted from this publication >> April 3, 1992
