Dear Mr. Gill,

Punjab police and other security forces under your command are guilty of unspeakable atrocities, including outright murder and rape of Sikh teenagers and the extortion of money from Sikh families for the return of their loved ones, jailed without charge or trial and threatened with death unless bribes equal to a year’s salary are paid.

These are crimes that can no longer be tolerated. Moreover, these are crimes that are now coming to the attention of the whole world through the international media. If these human Rights violations do not stop, neither Guru nor the Sikh nation will forgive them.

When a seventeen year old girl, like Gurmit Kaur can be violated by five drunken policemen, who raped ner without mercy for two hours her first night in the Kathunangal Police Station last month, having first beaten her with leather belts and tortured her by hanging her upside down while putting chili powder and fertilizer in her eyes; when that same young girl is again raped repeatedly and beaten the next day in an open police yard and then left there exposed for all to see; when this kind! of abomination is possible in the Punjab at the hands of policemen then none of its people are safe and the socalled rule of law there is a sham.

When police led by the Station House Officer of the Beas police station at Butala, can torture two defenseless women at their own home, the sisters Savinder and Narinder Kaur aged twenty one and nineteen respectively by rolling a heavy log over their legs till they passed out unconscious; then giving them the salt in the eyes tortured while they screamed after having first beaten up their aged

mother when these atrocities are possible in the Punjab at the hands of policemen then no one is safe and the Indian rule of law is a sham.

When a sadistic Senior Superintendent of Police like Govind Ram can preside over the rape of a ten and fifteen year old girl, the sisters Rajinder and Manjot Kaur who were violated in the Sadar police station in Batala, while their mother languishes in jail eight months and more without trial, where she is being severely beaten by police, and their father is picked up regularly for torture by police and taunted with the rape of his daughters, then there is no rule of law in the Punjab nor is anybody safe.

When hundreds of young Sikh men are arrested without charge, tortured and then murdered in cold blood by police to cover up the effects of the torture, this story is bound to leak out to the outside world, Hardeep Singh’s case is now the subject of an Amnesty Internationals “urgent action” bulletin: picked up off the street where he walked after dinner in Chandigarh on May 8, 1989, his location after a frantic search by relatives, remains unknown a very typical case these days in the Punjab. Local Hindu human rights groups, like the Committee on Information and Initiative in Punjab, are getting the word out to world on this horror. When the whole scale slaughter of young people can happen in the Punjab and Bidar and in Delhi like it has, then there is no rule of law in India and nobody is safe.

Cases like that of Savinder and Narinder Kaur have now reached the floor of the United States Congress, where Congressman Dan Burton of Indiana entered their case into the U.S. Congressional Record on May 18, 1989. So the abuses of the police Beas Station in Butala is now exposed. internationally for all to see. And several score Congressmen are now calling for severe U.S. trade sanctions until these crimes against humanity cease once and for all.

You are, therefore, sir, warned and well-advised to stop this illegal violation of the rights of these innocent men, women and children of the Punjab and the barbarous behavior of your police officers. | demand in the name of human decency, and in God’s name, that you put a stop to these abominable crimes, which are an offensive both to God and man.

Be advised as well, sir, that the Sikh nation is fighting for its freedom and liberty. Sikhs are not terrorists as they have so often slandered of late, but rather they are among the freedom fighters of the earth, laying down their lives for liberty. The Sikh homeland is presently occupied by Indian security forces but one day it will be free and independent and recognized worldwide as Khalistan.

When that day comes, those guilty of these crimes against the civilian population murder, rape, torture, extortion, will find themselves on trial under the auspices of international law as war criminals, just as in the days of the Nuremberg trial of the Nazis.

Since you yourself are a Sikh, sir, you should be able to find it in your heart to show some compassion for the Sikh people. The Indian government is using you as its tool to finish off the Sikhs as a people, as a culture and as a religious force for freedom. When you have served your purpose for them, you can be sure that they will finish you off as well. In the Delhi massacres anyone with a beard and a turban was attacked. If you had been in the vicinity you may have been burned alive too.

You may remember your colleague of IPS, Sadar Simranjit Singh Mann, Group Commandant, Central Industrial Security Force, Group Hor’s (Ministry of Home Affairs). He is currently biding his time in prison for his singular act of courage daring to speak out against the genocide of the Indian government against the Sikh people and then resigned his post. On June 18, 1984, in his letter of resignation to President Zail Singh, he said: “The Indian Army has already killed well over

20,000 of our Sikh youth and the whereabouts of over 50,000 are not known, Your prime minister and her generals are pursuing a policy that has already made Gen Dyer look mild in comparison.” That policy as you are well aware, sir continues ata brisk pace in the Punjab. I suggest that you do all in your power to reason with the Rajiv Gandhi government to stop this insane slaughter that can only bring death and tragedy, not only to the Punjab but to India.

Sincerely,

Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh President

Council of Khalistan

Article extracted from this publication >>  June 23, 1989