WHEN COPS GO BAD

Dear Editor:

I read Barbara Walters and U. Dall’s feature and was very much impressed by the revelation of “Truth Stranger Than Fiction”. I could not help noticing the genuine expressions of sorrow and surprise at such a state of affairs in real life.

This feature helped me to understand the plight of my people back home in Punjab, India. With powerful propaganda blitz by the Indian government and some serious blunders by the Sikhs themselves, the world more or less sees them as “terrorists” rather than victims of State and police terrorism.

If you care to probe the background of Operation Blue Star, you will find that it was acts of police terrorism and callous and indifferent attitude of the government to these brutalities that turned Sant Bhindranwale against the Indian government. In proof of this. It will be worthwhile to refer to the letter that Sant Bhindrawale wrote to Prime Minister Indira

Gandhi in ic he cites 32 specific instances of how police chopped off some victims’ legs and poured salt on the wounds and how some women were raped in front of their parents. In proof of the truth of his allegations, he offered Indira Gandhi to undergo any punishment if an independent inquiry found even one of his charges as baseless. It appears that when he did not get any positive response even from the highest executive authority (Prime Minister of India), he decided to play the vigilante role and then Mrs. Gandhi responded with her Operation Blue Star. Of course, attack on the Golden Temple, the holiest place of the Sikh religion was very shocking to the Sikhs. But what grossly compounded this shock was the tale of inhuman killings of innocent men, women and children, with their hands tied behind their backs, after the attack on the Golden Temple was complete. Have also sent Barbara Walters and U. Dall a copy of the official enquiry report of government of India which makes the “Cops in San Antonio, Texas” look as saints when compared to cops in Delhi. They “allowed people to be killed, houses to be burned, property to be looted, women to be dragged and misbehaved right in their presence”. Until now, mot a single person has been arrested or charged for more than 3,000 deaths according to official estimates.

I hope the world will try to understand the whole problem of Sikhs in India better against the background of the feature “When Cops Go Bad”. I wonder if they would be the journalists of my dream who one day will really probe deep for the truth of unrest in Punjab, India, and find out why the most patriotic minority of Sikhs is now fighting for independence from a country which it used to love so much that in spite of being only two percent of its population it provided, 75 percent of martyrs for its Independence from British government.

 

Daljit Singh Topeka, Kansas

Article extracted from this publication >>  April 3, 1987