SAFHR Publications
SAFHR Paper Series is on contemporary issues of peace and human rights in South Asia. They are in the nature of long essays and dossiers. Till now seven papers have been published under the series. They are: 1. Girl Trafficking in Nepal 2. The Mahakali Integrated Development Treaty – An Evaluation of News Coverage 3. Refugees in South Asia – A Report 4. Those Accords – A Bunch of Document 5. Peace process in Nagaland and Chittagong Hill Tracts - Peace Audit Report 1 6. Protection of Refugees in South Asia - Need for a Legal Framework 7. Ten-Week War in Kargil - From the News File 8. Peace Process in Sri Lanka - Peace Audit Report 2 9. Reporting Conflict - A Radical Critique of the Mass Media by Indian and Pakistani Journalists 10. A Complex Denial: Disappearances, Secret Cremations & The Is- sue of Truth and Justice in Punjab 11. Militarized Hindu Nationalism and the Mass Media 12. Three Essays on Law, Responsibility and Justice 13. The Current History of Peace Politics
SAFHR volumes are results of collaborative research and dialogues among partners across borders. The four volumes are: 1. States, Citizens and Outsiders - The Uprooted Peoples of South Asia 2. Living on the Edge – Essays on the Chittagong Hill Tracts. 3. Shrinking Space - Minority Rights in South Asia 4. Women, War and Peace in South Asia - Beyond Victimhood to Agency 5. Open Borders: Women Making Peace – A Report
REFUGEE WATCH is a quarterly published by SAFHR on refugees and forced migrants in South Asia. Published from 1998 in collaboration with its partner in Calcutta, Calcutta Research group, REFUGEE WATCH covers news on forced population movements in the region, reflections on sys- tems and institutions of refugee care and protection of refugee rights, and carries voices from exile.
South Asia Forum for Human Rights GPO Box 12855, Kathamndu, Nepal Tel: 977-1-541026 Fax: 977-1-527852 E-mail: [email protected] http://www.safhr.org
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Reduced to Ashes: The Insurgency and Human Rights in Punjab First published, May 2003
© Ram Narayan Kumar & Amrik Singh
All rights reserved. Except for quotations in reviews, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the two au- thors and the publisher. For information, address South Asia Forum for Human Rights, GPO Box 12855, Kathamandu, Nepal.
Cover design by Marlyn Tadros, Hendrik van der Berge & Chandra Khatiwada
Layout by the printhouse, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Printed by Jagadamba Press, Lalitpur, Nepal.
Published by South Asia Forum for Human Rights GPO Box 12855 Kathmandu. Nepal Tel: 977-1-5541026 Fax: 977-1-5527852 E-mail: [email protected] http://www.safhr.org
ISBN 99933-53-57-4 CONTENTS Contents
PREFACE - By Peter Rosenblum I
INTRODUCTION - By Tapan Bose II
NHRC CHRONOLOGY IX
JASWANT SINGH KHALRA: A MARTYR FOR HUMAN RIGHTS 1
Part One: Evidence of Mass Illegal Cremations 3 The Abduction of Jaswant Singh Khalra 6 Intervention by the Supreme Court of India 7
Part Two: Narrative History of Punjab and Human Rights Inspirations 11 The Gadhr Movement 11 Communal Movements and Kartar Singh 15 Partition of Punjab 19 Formative Years of Jaswant Singh Khalra 21 Khalra’s Early Political Activities 24 Indira Gandhi’s Emergency: Sideshows of a Democracy 27 Incongruous Alliances: the Akalis and Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale 28 Indira Gandhi Moves to Consolidate Power 32 Operation Blue Star: The Army Assault 35 Assassination of Indira Gandhi and Delhi Pogroms 41 Abortion of a Peace Accord 45 Election Hopes 48 Poll Boycott 50 Silencing of Human Rights Groups 52 Early Investigations by Jaswant Singh Khalra 53 Senior Officers Threaten Jaswant Singh Khalra 55 Vitriolic Public Exchanges 57 Assassination of the Chief Minister 60
Part Three: Khalra’s Abduction and the CBI’s Investigation 61 The Identification of the Police Officers 62 Campaign against Human Rights Groups 64 Reduced to Ashes
Witnesses Face Police Pressure 65 CBI Caves in to Police Impunity 67 Elusive Goals of Justice and Truth 71
IMPUNITY BY ALL MEANS: RIGHTS AND THE DEAD-ENDS OF LAW 73
Part One: The Search for Truth 75 Election Manifesto 75 Recent Examples of Truth Commissions 76 Paradigmatic Examples: Argentina and Chile 77 Popular Co-Agency 82 Part Two: Legislative Apparatus of Counter-insurgency 83 Draconian Laws 83 Examination of Provisions of TADA 84 Point and Counterpoint: Supreme Court Upholds TADA 87 Subordination of Fundamental Rights to the Will of the State 98
Part Three: Punjab Police—Development and Reorganization 100 Origins of the Punjab Police 100 Savage Transformations: Allegations of Undercover Operations 102 Police Vigilante Outfits 104 Gurdev Singh Kaunke 107 Police Quotas for Murders: Interview with an SSP 107
Part Four: People’s Commission and NHRC 108 The People’s Commission and the Clamour for its Ban 108 Political and Legal Arguments For and Against the Ban 110 Origins of the NHRC 114 Four Phases of the Proceedings: Preliminary Questions 115 Conflicts on the Scope of Inquiry 116 Submissions on the Preliminary Issues 117 The Order on the Preliminary Issues 119 Our Suggestions on the Modalities of Further Proceedings 122 Second Phase: The Union Government Returns to the Supreme Court 123 Arguments in a Vicious Circle 124 Deconstruction of a Mandate 125 The Terms of Reference: New Interpretations 126 Limitations on the NHRC Inquiry 128 Our Understanding of the Mandate 129 The Commission Rejects our Review Application 130 Contents
Third Phase: The Grounds for Moving the Supreme Court 131 The Light of Further Evidence 131 Empyrean Indifference 132 Third Phase: Withdrawal from Hearings 134 Attempts to Close the Matter 137 Fourth Phase: Restoration of the Restricted Mandate 139 Stalled Proceedings 144
METHODOLOGY 147
The Interview Process 150 A Case for Exclusion 151 Integrity in Fact-Finding 152 Interim Report 153 First Volume 157
ANALYSIS OF CASE SUMMARIES 159
The CBI’s Three Lists of Illegal Cremations 161 Police Powers 170 The use of TADA and the Notion of Criminality 187 Custodial Torture 182 The Indian Armed Forces 191 Victims’ Property 197 The Lower Judiciary and Its Role 199 Medical Note 202
SUMMARIES OF CASES OF ILLEGAL CREMATIONS INCLUDED IN THE CBI LISTS 205
The List of Identified Dead Bodies 207 Cremations in the Police District of Tarn Taran 207 Cremations in the Police District of Amritsar 368 Cremations in the Police District of Majitha 398
The List of Partially Identified Dead Bodies 485 Cremations in the Police District of Tarn Taran 485 Cremations in the Police District of Amritsar 512 Cremations in the Police District of Majitha 520
The List of Unidentified Dead Bodies 535 Reduced to Ashes
ENDNOTE: REFLECTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 601
APPENDICES i: Press Note on Mass Illegal Cremations 605 II: Incident Report Form 609 III: Maps of Punjab and India 613 IV: Organizational Structure of Punjab Police and 615 Abbreviations of Police Ranks 616 V: December 12, 1996 Supreme Court Order Referring the Matter of Illegal Cremations to the NHRC 617 VI: NHRC Proceeding of 18 August 2000 621 VII: Glossary 623 Sample Pages from the CBI Lists of Illegal Cremations by the Police 625 VIII: Acknowledgments 635 PREFACE
his report on disappearances in Punjab is the first published piece in a massive Tand on-going undertaking by a small group of very committed scholars and activists. For more than two years, I have followed their work. At first, I wondered why they were returning to the seemingly settled events of the last decade when new and pressing conflicts threatened individual liberties and personal security in India and beyond. I was also skeptical about their ability to pierce through the thick veils of ideology, intrigue and "state security" that obscure our understanding of the campaign to pacify Punjab. My initial skepticism was appeased by the careful methodology of the research- ers. They systematically collected testimonies from across the region, transcribed them and invested hundreds of hours correlating these with public statements, docu- ments, and officials records. I also acquired a better understanding of the many motivations that animated them: they were not taking sides in a conflict; they did not expect to change history or right a history of wrongs with a single report. Rather, they sought to empower the families of disappeared to reclaim their dignity, to press the institutions of the state to perform their obligations, and to lay the ground work for an honest retelling of a tragic part of recent history. This would already be enough to legitimize the project. But current events in India and the world render the undertaking all the more relevant. When viewed in the light of police, court and crematoria records, the raw material of this report - the hundreds of testimonies - raise serious questions about the state's willingness to honestly address the problem of balancing justice and security. The testimonies tell a story of detainees cremated after their court ordered release, of "disappeared" policemen whose names are consistently forgotten, of high-level policemen who portray a simple story of good vs. evil. Even at a time when TADA reigned su- preme, the few judicial niceties still required appeared to be too much for the forces of law and order. Many of those who designed and implemented the policies in Punjab are still active today. They are treated as authorities on the subject of terrorism. At a time of renewed pressure on both courts and police to stop communal violence and pre- vent terrorism, this report should help enable a full discussion of the costs and benefits of previous action. There are many kinds of human rights reports: There are reports that shame, reports that shock, and reports that inform. Some leave the reader stunned, some angry, and some simply confused or nonplussed. Can you trust the author? Is the information objective? Are biases exposed and discussed? In this case, the reader needn't trust the good faith of the authors or agree with their stated or unstated opinions. The report presents massive evidence gathered from families and officials who participated and suffered in the struggles in Punjab.
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The very presentation is a rebuke to the National Human Rights Commission that has advanced so little in the course of its investigation. The sheer mass of testimonies makes it impossible to dismiss out of hand. If there are questions about their veracity, it is for the authorities to raise them now. If even some of the testimonies are true, then the official story must change: it is impossible to dismiss those who died as simply "terrorists." If the testimonies are substantially true, then the work of the NHRC and the courts has barely begun because there are glaring violations of rights to be addressed and responsibility to be apportioned. The authors of this report have benefited from the moral support of many people over the years and the financial support of very few. They have made offices out of beds and the corners of rooms and turned nights into work days. A good report is a call to action. They will have succeeded if we, the readers, answer this call.
Peter Rosenblum Clinical Director Human Rights Program, Harvard Law School Boston, MA, December 2002
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I have no hope. In ten to fifteen years, we will also sit down and give up. How much can we do? -Paramjeet Kaur, wife of Jaswant S. Khalra Disappeared 6 September 1995
Why doesn't the judiciary take any action against them? These judge-folks, they know everything. They hear the pain in the voices of the victims and see the honesty in their eyes. Yet they are helpless . . . it's been six-and-a-half- years since I've been pushed around, and still I have no relief. -Mohinder Singh, father of Jagraj Singh Disappeared 14 January 1995
unjab, rather the truncated part of the province east of the Pakistani border that Premained with India after the 1947 partition of the subcontinent, is a member state of the Indian Union. Totally landlocked, it covers 50,000 out of India's 3.3 million sq. kilometers of a diverse geography. Its population of approximately 22 million people is dominated by the Sikhs, a distinct religious community initiated by Guru Govind Singh in 1699. W. Owen Cole's dictionary of Sikhism defines a Sikh as "any person who believes in God; in the 10 Gurus; in their principal scrip- ture known as Guru Granth Sahib; in the Khalsa initiation ceremony and who does not believe in the doctrinal system of any other religion."1 Less than 2 per cent of India's one billion population, the Sikhs constitute more than 62.1 per cent of Punjab's approximately 22 million people. Before the partition of 1947, Punjab used to be an overwhelmingly Muslim province. The communal partition of 1947 and the civil war in its wake, took a toll of 200,000 to half a million lives by various estimates. In less than four decades of that traumatic experience, the Sikhs witnessed another spell of a bloody political unrest. This unrest developed from the Sikh political agitation to obtain a radical measure of political devolution. By the middle of the 1980s the unrest became vio- lently separatist and was ruthlessly crushed by the Indian government. Reduced to Ashes: The Insurgency and Human Rights in Punjab is the final
1 W. Owen Cole and Piara Singh Sambhi, A Popular Dictionary of Sikhism, Curzon Press, London, 1990
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report of the Committee for Coordination on Disappearances in Punjab (CCDP), which focuses on human rights abuses that occurred in the period from 1984 to 1994. This report, as Peter Rosenblum suggests in the preface, is the "ground work for an honest retelling of a tragic part of history". It is an attempt to tell the truth about political killings, enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrests and pro- longed unlawful detentions that became the stock-in-trade of the anti-insurgency operations in Punjab. It reveals the complex denial by the state agencies and their defenders and the institutional participation in the scheme of impunity. It does not take sides on the political guilt or innocence of the victims; eschews rhetoric and, significantly, stays clear from the quicksands of political solutions. The report, how- ever, lays bare the parallelism of the rhetoric of rights and the reality of extreme human rights abuses that bedevils the Indian democratic paradigm. It may be asked why another report on Punjab? It could be justifiably argued that already much has been written about the abuse of human rights in Punjab and that by raking up all this once again we might jeopardise the process of "healing". But as we know, the silence of graveyard that obtains in Punjab today is not a reflection of peace. The enquiry being conducted by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, in the disap- pearances and illegal cremations in Punjab, shows the deep social divisions that is endangering the prospects of justice and peace in the state. Every attempt to bring justice to the victims, reform the institutions in order to achieve transparency, struc- tural equality and democracy has been frustrated by powerful persons linked with the pervious administration that perpetrated the horrible abuses in the mistaken belief of defending the integrity of the state. Their demand for amnesty has found support in the highest quarters of the Indian government. On 19 August 2001, the union home minister spoke at a function organized by the Hind Samachar group of newspapers at Jalandhar to announce that the government was "contemplating steps to provide legal protection and relief to the personnel of the security forces facing prosecution for alleged excesses during anti-insurgency operations" in Punjab, Kashmir and the north-eastern provinces of India. According to a report in The Asian Age, the Union Home Minister indicated "some form of general amnesty" and suggested that "forces deployed to combat terrorism anywhere in the country must be given special rights and powers". K. P. S. Gill, former director-general of Punjab police welcomed the move and, according to a story in The Indian Express, repeated his charge that the cases against police officers "were based on concocted evidence by the investigating agencies acting under undue and extra-constitutional pressures". The Home Minister's announcement was hailed also by the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Congress party, which promised to "withdraw all the cases against the innocent cops" if voted to power. The subsequent state assembly elections in Punjab returned the Congress to power and its government in the state is led by Amrinder Singh, the scion of Patiala royalty who converted the issue of amnesty to police officials into an election pledge. It is in this context and the de- clared positions on impunity by both the state and the Union government that the NHRC will have to weigh the evidence of human rights crimes offered in this vol- ume of the report before proceedings in the matter of abductions leading to illegal cremations by the Punjab police in Amritsar district The decade of political violence has left behind a large number of victims who
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are still seeking justice. These people are trapped in a web of fear, rumour and myth. They need to be released from the psychology of the victim-hood. But their journey from the bewilderment of shattered lives under a complex political con- spiracy to a position of purposeful survival is not possible without the acknowledg- ment of what happened. The complex denial of truth not only serves the purpose of making atrocities invisible, it also makes the experiences of atrocities irrevocable. It also compromises the process of healing and keeps the state embedded in the culture of impunity. It is the most serious roadblock in the path of transition from conflict to sustainable peace, from repression to democracy. As N. J. Kritz has noted, "the assumption that individuals and groups that have been victims of hid- eous atrocities will simply forget about them or expunge their feelings without some form of accounting, some semblance of justice, is to leave in place the seeds of future conflict."2 The data contained in this volume shows troubling contributions to police im- punity at all levels of the state and national government and judiciary. For example, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India's premier investigative agency, failed to seriously and properly investigate the matter of illegal cremations as en- trusted to it by the Supreme Court in 1995. At the conclusion of their investigation, the CBI submitted three lists of identified, partially identified and unidentified cre- mations conducted by the police. These lists reveal several discrepancies. The CBI failed to identify persons it easily could have identified from complaints filed by victim families, interviews with them, police records, and press reports; it dupli- cated records and listed persons who had been cremated by their families, not by the police; and it failed to properly investigate the cremations of additional persons reported as having died in the same encounters and also the cremations of others listed under the same police reports. Thus, it did not go beyond the police records to examine the actual extent of illegal cremations in Amritsar district. The report also shows how the police regularly and openly flouted legal proce- dures for arrest and search. The police failed to respond to families' requests for information regarding the abducted persons; they extorted money from victim fami- lies and they travelled outside of their jurisdiction to capture people. The volume documents the prevalence of custodial torture and traces the patterns of its use against family members, the police's destruction, expropriation or damage of property be- longing to victim families and the complicity of the judiciary in ensuring impunity for custodial torture and death. The defenders of impunity in Punjab have been vocal against the human rights litigation that seeks accountability and restitution of hideous abuses of power. On 8 June 2001, K. P. S. Gill published an article in the Hindustan Times titled "Man in Uniform Demands Justice". The article argued that "those who risked their lives in the defence of the State" are being subject to "a humiliating process of prosecution in a multiplicity of cases that were intentionally and maliciously lodged … as a strategy of vendetta by the front organizations of the defeated terrorist movement". Gill asked: "How long will men continue to fight and to die for India, if no one in the country speaks for the men in uniform? Can the power of the state survive the
2 Kritz, N. J., "Accountability of International Crime and Serious Violations of Fundamental Rights: Coming to terms with atrocities: A review of accountability mechanism for mass violations of human rights", Law and Contemporary Problems, fall, 1996
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erosion of the confidence and authority of those who protect it?" This rhetoric of morale and the national security is evidence of attempts to thwart the process of accountability. In his foreword to a book titled Human Rights and the Indian Armed Forces, Gill criticised the "systematic adoption of human rights liti- gation as a weapon against agencies of the State by criminals and by violent groups who themselves reject democracy and seek the overthrow of lawful and elected government". According to him: "An overwhelming proportion of public interest human rights litigation is today being initiated by front organizations of criminal conglomerates and of virulent underground terrorist movements in a systematic strategy to harass and paralyse security forces and the police."3 In this context it is important to note what the El Salvador Commission on Truth noted in the introduction of its 1993 report: "A situation of repeated criminal acts may arise in which different individuals act within the same institution in unmistak- ably similar ways independently of political ideology of the government and deci- sion makers. This gives reason to believe that the institutions may indeed commit crimes, if clear-cut accusations are met with a cover-up by the institution to which the accused belonged and the institution is slow to act when investigations reveal who is responsible. In such circumstances, it is easy to succumb to the argument that repeated crimes mean that the the institution is to blame."4 Clearly it is neces- sary to prosecute such individuals who formulated, planned and organised grave human rights abuses in the name of national security. The Nuremberg Trial estab- lished this principle internationally. A public knowledge of the truth is therefore necessary not only to release the victims from the past, it is also required for strengthening the legitimacy of the healing process initiated by a new regime for augmenting society's commitment to justice. Without acknowledgement of what has happened, the circle of impunity and injustice cannot be broken and the impartiality and independence of the judicial mechanisms -- trials and legal tribunals -- and the rule of law cannot be restored. Justice is both a means of ensuring accountability for grave human rights abuses and a preventive, deterrent mechanism. Outline of the Report
Chapter One of the report, Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights, explains the origins of the CCDP's work and the early evidence of mass illegal cremations. It gives a narrative history of Punjab and its human rights inspirations, intertwining the family history of Jaswant Singh Khalra, and ends with the details of his disappearance and the on-going trial of the accused officers. Chapter Two of the report, Impunity by All Means: Rights and the Dead-Ends of Law, gives a description of the extent and depth of impunity for these human rights violations. The chapter provides an explanation of the need for a public discourse
3 Air Commodore Ran Vir Kumar & Group Captain B. P. Sharma, Human Rights and the Indian Armed Forces: A Source Book, Sterling Publishers, New Delhi, 1998, pp. xiv - xv 4 Report of the Commission on Truth, El Salvador, 1993. The Commission on Truth the 1980-1991 Internal Armed Conflict in El Salvador collected information from 2,000 primary sources referring to 7000 victims and information from secondary sources referring to over 20,000 victims of extra judicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture and hostage taking.
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amidst the banning of the privately-established people's commission. Next, it gives a detailed examination of the legislative apparatus of counter-insurgency. Chapter Two also discusses the development and reorganization of the Punjab police during the counter-insurgency operations. This section reproduces an interview with a senior police official, describing the brutal details of the torture and death of a Sikh religious leader as well as the patterns and practices of police abuse. The chapter concludes with an in-depth factual and legal analysis of the on-going proceedings before the NHRC. This chapter demonstrates how all procedures of law in India have failed to address the violations of fundamental rights in Punjab and have con- tributed to police impunity. While Chapter Three explains the methodology used by CCDP in its investiga- tive work, Chapter Four analyses the data presented in this volume. It focuses on explaining trends and highlighting specific examples on the following issues: The characteristics of the investigation by the CBI; abuse of police powers; implications of the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1987; use of custodial torture; role of Indian armed forces; violations of property rights; complicity of the lower judiciary; and the issues of medico-legal ethics. Chapter Five presents specific information about the personal and political back- grounds of 672 victims and the circumstances in which the victims disappeared or were executed before being cremated by the police. All the cases draw from the CBI's lists being adjudicated before the NHRC and focus on Amritsar district alone - one out of 17 districts in Punjab. Although this matter of police abductions leading to illegal cremations was initiated six years ago before the NHRC, the commission unfortunately has failed to examine a single case of abuse. It has also not heard a single victim's testimony or deposition.The volume concludes with an Endnote: Reflections and Recommendations, as well as a collection of appendices. The CCDP is also simultaneously launching its website: www.punjabjustice.org. This website not only includes the electronic version of the report, it also has a searchable database of the CBI's lists of illegally cremated victims, video inter- views and documents that supplement the collection of materials in the report. We hope that the CCDP will subsequently release the second volume of its final report, presenting its investigative material on another 1,190 cases of extra-judicial execu- tions or disappearances drawn from all of Punjab. Goals
The victims of political violence are frequently neglected. The governing elite - the politicians, the bureaucracy and the military tend to forget them. This report is an attempt to make the victims visible. It lays bare their experiences, expectations and fears in the hope that they will be acknowledged and the violators punished. This is central to the moral recovery of the victims and the society as a whole. As J. P. Lederach points out, "by telling and hearing of these stories, we as a people will be able to validate the experiences and feelings of the victims, restore their dignity and assist them to re-enter society as equal partners".5 Truth telling is the foundation for
5 Lederach, J. P., Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies, USIP, Washington D.C., 1997.
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reconciliation of deep social and political divide. This work is being done by the truth and reconciliation commissions in many war-torn countries. This is the core of transitional justice. Experiences of the truth and reconciliation commissions worldwide underline the importance of truth telling for ensuring that impunity for violations are broken so that the aspiration of "never again" is realised and national reconciliation is achieved. The goals of the South Asia Forum for Human Rights in bringing out this report are: