This booklet is a compilation of two reports detailing unspeakable atrocities on Sikh women who have been humiliated, dishonoured and raped by the police and the security forces. One is by a group of women activists a the Punjab Human Rights Organisation (PHRO) and the Punjab yen Manch (Punjab Womens’ Forum), comprising Dr. Jiwan Jot Kaur (Vice President PHRO and Convenor of Nari Manch) and Miss Kamal Sandhu.
This report was originally published in Punjabi under the title: “Eti Maar Payi Kurlane”.
The other report – SSP Govind Ram: The Terror in Batala – was prepared by Mr. R.N. Kumar, Mr Ashok Agarwaal and Mr. Tapan Bose, the members of the Committee for Information and Initiative on Punjab, based in Delhi. Mr. Kumar and his associates deserve full marks as human rights activists for their painstaking efforts to investigate human rights violations in Punjab. It is a pity that other human rights groups who did a lot of good work in 1984 and 1985 have become inactive in relation to Punjab.
The two teams independently toured the Batala and Ludhiana areas, met numerous women and children, recorded their statements to conclude that a massive inhuman aggression had been launched by the Indian State on hapless women, children and the old.
The aim behind the aggression was to bring to submission the whole Sikh population and to show to them that the State could go to any extent to stop the population from sympathizing with militants seeking a separate country for the Sikhs. The choice of Batala sub-division of Gurdaspur district for the attack was motivated obviously by the fact that the area is the mainstay of the Sikh militant struggle.
The person chosen for the job, Senior Superintendent of Police, Gobind Ram, a Dalit Police Officer, earlier served in Faridkot District where at least 50 Sikh youths were killed by the police in false encounters during the period May 12 – July 28, 1987. It was in the Batala area that Sikh masses in March 1986 rose in peaceful revolt to organise an economic boycott of all supporters of the Indian State entrenched in cities like Batala.
An instant protest movement grew against these abominable crimes in Batala area: there was a complete State wide bandh for one day on April 30, 1989, against the State repression in response to a call issued by the P.H.R.O. Subsequently, the Indian State had to call a temporary halt to its mad campaign against women. The Director-General of Police, Punjab, issued directions to his subordinate officers not to take women to police stations. But day after day reports are appearing about rape of teenage girls and old Sikh women at the hands of the police; of naked parading of women folk; of gang rapes and so on. There is no end to it.
The P.H.R.O. through this booklet seeks to inform the world about the happenings in the Batala and Ludhiana areas and urges the Indian Government to put an end to this madness.
London
August 14 1989
D.S. Gill Advocate
General Secretary
P.H.R.O.
