By Justice Ajit Singh Bains (Retd) Chairman, Punjab Human Rights Organisation 22, Sector 2, Chandigarh, Punjab, India
The people of Punjab are reeling under state repression for the last78 years. There is no rule of law. Bullet for bullet theory is openly practised by the state authorities. The most undemocratic laws, such as TADA and NSA, are in operation. Such laws were not in operation even during the British rule in Punjab. Political prisoners have no rights. More than 14,000 are languishing in jails for many years. Thousands of innocent people are detained under illegal detention in the police stations and concentration camps under the control of the Central Reserve Police (CRP) and Border Security Force (BSF). People are tortured, women are ill-treated and raped, extra judicial murders are also committed. Uniformed brutality is on the increase. Punjab is virtually under siege. More than one hundred and fifty thousand para military forces are occupying Punjab, besides the Punjab police and army. Buses, cars etc. are searched at gunpoint. Police can enter any house at any time without following legal procedures. Undercover gangs of police are in operation. Most of the looting, extortion, rapes and murders are committed by them. Major B.S. Ghuman was murdered on June 23, 1990 by one such gang. All the historic Sikh Gurdwaras are surrounded by the CRP. The Golden Temple is virtually occupied by the CRP. It periphery is totally destroyed. Pilgrims are thoroughly searched by metal detectors, as if they were checking in at the airport. There is no freedom of movement and expression; basic civil liberties such as the right to live, are virtually taken away. People are at the mercy of the police and para military forces; there is a permanent curfew during the night (sunset to sunrise, dusk to dawn) in the border villages. Farmers cannot even tend to their farms. The entire state of Punjab is virtually like a concentration camps and is cut off from the rest of the world.
In the recent Lok Sabha elections, the people of Punjab voted against state repression and for freedom. They rejected the congress and the old Akali leadership it was virtually a vote against the siege. The expected the new National Front government, under VP Singh would lift the siege, repeal the draconian laws, withdraw the para military forces, dismantle the oppressive machinery punish the guilty police and civil officers, try them in a court of law, but none of that has happened. Rather, the repressive fake encounters are on the increase. In a single average day, scores of innocent people are killed by the police. For example 13 innocent people were killed on January 17, 1990.
The people of Punjab want the restoration of the rule of law and they want their basic human rights to be restored. They want political, economic and social justice which has been denied them so far for the last few years. They want the release of the innocent who are languishing in jails; they want expeditious trails against those who the cases are registered for. They want the winding up of the illegal concentration camps organized by the CRP and BSF.
No regime can continue without imparting social, economic and political justice. This is the basis of a government. It is when a justice is denied and the basic human rights violated that the people rise in revolt. To avoid such a situation, a universal declaration of human rights was adopted on the 10th of December 1948, by the United Nations, of which India is a signatory to his declaration and the various covenants adopted by the UNO.
Conditions in Punjab are even worse than those practised by the racist South African regime and can result in open revolt if the oppression continues and the rule of law is not restored.
Punjab is virtually a police state. Civil administration is irrelevant. All the resources of Punjab are spent on the maintenance of the oppressive machinery. Development of Punjab is at a standstill. Such conditions cannot exist in any civilized democratic country. The government of India is neither secular nor democratic. It is, rather communal and fascist. It wants to destroy the identity of the minorities, Dalits, tribal and other ethnic groups.
It is time that the government of India stop relying on bullets and bloodshed and solve the Punjab problem politically. Mighty empires who relied on repression crumbled in the past and the same fate awaits such regimes in the future also.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 24, 1990
