NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court was on July 22nd told by the CBI that it had found enough material and evidence to show that as many as 1000 bodies tagged as “unidentified” by the Punjab Police had been disposed of surreptiously during 199095. A 74page preliminary report knitted by the CBI to a Division Bench comprising Justice Kuldip Singh and Justice Saghir Ahmed has stated that on the basis of material collected during the probe ordered by the court, it had prima facie found a total of 984 bodies had been cremated by the police on the ground that they were “laawaris” (unidentified). Expressing their “horror and shock” at the finding, the judges in a brief order directed the CBI to continue its inquiry into the matter and issue a general direction to the public/authorities or Government officers to hand over any information regarding the issue to the CBL.

The court ordered the DIG (border) Punjab police, Mr.B.S. Sandhu to hand over all relevant records regarding the cremation of bodies of unidentified persons to the CBI without any further delay.

The direction came after Additional Solicitor General K.T.S. Tulsi told the court that there was some delay in these records being handed over to the CBI.

The court warned that any further delay in handing over the records to the CBI by Mr. Sandhu would amount to violation of its orders and would attract conformers and would attract con tempt of court. The judges observed that this incident of disposal of bodies of unidentified persons was “worse than genocide.” “We shudder to think of such a thing happening in a democracy,” the judges said. Adjourning the hearing in the matter to October 7 to enable the CBI to submit its final report, the judges asked the CBI to speed up the probe. In another report, the CBI told the court that it had investigated in to the murder of a human rights activist Mr. Kalra and had found several policemen were involved in the murder.

It sought the court’s permission also to file three separate cases in the killings of three other persons by Punjab policemen.

Article extracted from this publication >>  July 24, 1996