State Terrorism in Punjab a Report

STATE TERRORISM IN PUNJAB

A REPORT

i 153- WINSON STRttT I WINSON GREEN l! BIRMINGHAM, ' H B18 4JW I t Tel: 021-454 2996

Published by

Committee for Information and Initiative on Punjab, New Delhi. 1989

Digitized by Panjab Digital Library / www.panjabdiqUib.orp

STATE TERRORISM IN PUNJAB

A REPORT

■ ' - ■;-c: In v -S'; -. . U rJ •*'. ' . r-1 viu'Un i6, C!;n^a;^nra.

Published by

Committee for Information and Initiative on Punjab, New Delhi. 1989

INTRODUCTION

For the last several years the Indian State has been presenting Punjab as a ‘Problem Province’ and the Sikhs as a ’Problem People’. The much vaunted slogan of ‘integrity of the nation’ has been consolidated into the Categorical Imperative that the State can do no wrong vis-a-vis the Sikhs. The genocide of the Sikhs in 1984 in Delhi and elsewhere was seen by the authorities as "understandable in the context".

There has been little news on Punjab save what the State has been dishing out - which is mainly of ‘terrorists’ killing and alternatively getting killed. The constitutional imperative of judicial determination of guilt having been discounted into oblivion by both the police and the press, the reports on terrorists are presented by them without the ambiguity of the adjec tive alleged". Punjab, which in 1919 housed what was perhaps the most poignant and memorable protest against the Rowlatt Act is today beseiged by a host of even more intimidatory legislation. And in the spirit of "anything you can do, I can do better", towards colonial masters of yore the State of free India has or dained admissible in evidence confessions made to police officials. The Rowlatt Act passed by the British government of India in February 1919 to consolidate the war-time provisions of detention without trial and trial without jury, had prompted Gandhi to call for

^^^^njâniaîQita^brBr^^ww^paniabdiqUibôm non-cooperation with the government for the first time. It was the repression of this movement epitomized by the massacre of Jallianwala Bag which had led Gandhi to proclaim Swaraj as the goal of the people of India in January 1922.

It is not startling that a State which within the first decade of national independence brought into being the Preventive Detention Act, revived the DIR and has since not looked back with ESMA, MISA, NSA and others-should today contrive the Disturbed Areas Act, Armed Forces Special Power Act, and Terrorists and Disruptive Areas Act. But with all these acts and the President’s Rule in Punjab in full swing that it is being found necessary to formally abrogate the right to life by the 59th Amendment, does make one pause and think. The Indian State has never covered itself with glory in the matter of human rights. According to an Amnesty International report, during the late 60s and early 70s, 23,000 political activists were killed all over the country. Torture of political prisoners and of suspects in criminal cases is routine. During the last forty years almost the entire north eastern part of our country has been under virtual military occupation. The atrocities prepetrated by our security forces on the innocent Moslem citizens in the villages of Jammu and Kashmir in the 60 s during the de-population programme is yet to be told. In Punjab’s case, however, even the pretenses as to legality have been dropped. With manipulation of infor mation and pejorative propaganda the Sikhs have been isolated from the rest of the Indian people and the polarization is near complete. Given the situation, some of us felt impelled to attempt to know the truth about Punjab. Ram Narayan Kumar, a free lance journalist,

nimti7Pd hu P.nizh ninital I ibrarvnn toured Punjab in March 1988. He also came across in stances which showed a complete break-down of the rule of law. He came across the Tiwana Commission Report - the report of a commission of inquiry set up under the Act and conducted by Justice C.S. Tiwana, retired Judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The report tells the harrowing tale of happenings inside the Lada Khoti, a former pleasure resort of the Maharaja of Patiala which was turned into a veritable torture chamber after the Operation Blue Star. In a fer vent attempt to measure up to the concentration camps set up by more eminent dictators of yore batches of per sons, whose original detention found by Justice Tiwana to have been illegal in most cases, were sent randomly to Lada Kothi to be tortured. The recommenda tions of the Commission for action against the police of ficers identified by name and deed have not been implemented. The Commission’s report tabled on the floor of the Punjab Assembly has been effectively hushed up.

Ram Narayan Kumar came across case of a child of 15 picked up and exterminated in police lock-up with the explanation of ‘encounter death’ given to the parents subsequently. And cases of women taken into custody, tortured and released only to be left to die. Most interestingly of all he came across the redoubtable CIA (Central Investigation Agency), the modus opera ndi. of which is to move around in unnumbered vehicles containing sometimes uniformed, sometimes un uniformed, scruffy and ruffian looking characters, picking up and taking into custody anyone at fancy and t orturino, killing or maiming them. The case of Iq bal Singh a former denizen of the Lada Kothi torture

^^^^^^^^Tia^DTQTta^brBr^^www^panjabdiqUib^om centre referred above was one such. The covetous eyes of the CIA fell upon Iqbal Singh one morning and he was whisked away to the CIA staff headquarters, Farid- kot where he remained for a month. No record was kept of his arrest. It was while moving a habeas corpus peti tion for Iqbal Singh that our Committee came to be. Iqbal’s family was too terrorised to give an affidavit and the committee was formed to take responsibility and to move a Habeas Corpus Petition in the Supreme Court. Probably upon getting an inkling of the Supreme Court’s Show Cause Notice, the Senior Superintendent of Police, Faridkot, in whose custody Iqbal was, released him in the presence of several persons. The same official has since stated on oath before the highest court of the land that Iqbal Singh was never taken into custody.

Then there was the case of Jagtar Singh and his wife, Haijit Kaur, who were arrested from the Golden Temple complex and taken to a local interrogation centre from where the wife was released and of the hus band there was no trace. We organised telegrams to be sent to the Governor seeking Jagtar’s release. Eminent civil libertarians like V M Tarkunde and several others sent telegrams to the Governor and Jagtar Singh was released.

Avtar Singh Siddhu, an activist of the Youth Akali Dal, has been of great help to several victims of police repression in District Faridkot and elsewhere. He sup plied us reliable information in many of the cases that we have documented. This young man was driven to handing himself over to the police after the CIA staff had arrested, detained and tortured about 32 members

I idlf of family, ransacked his house in Muktsar, slashed 'and te*ePhone lines, confiscated a truck belonging to the kepi family business. Siddhu thinking it a measure of caution, pj surrendered directly to the Director General of Police, |, KPS Gill in the presence of Capt. Amarinder Singh, former MP on October 14, 1988. Gill assured Cap.Amarinder Singh that Siddhu would not be tor- J tured and would be dealt with in accordance with law. Three weeks since, there was not trace of Siddhu. Some ' * of os met SSP Faridkot who admitted Sidhu’s custody, his non-production before a magistrate. But he pleaded helplessness- to say or do anything- since the j DG, Police was himself handling the case. We then ap- “ plied to the DG, Police for elucidation. The DGP’s ^ response alternated between stout denial that anyone at all was kept in custody by the Punjab Police for as long as three weeks and intimidation in the nature of asking ^ our hostess in Chandigarh whether she would like to 11 get rid of us”. We are yet to get an official response to D our formal application on behalf of Siddhu. Back in Delhi we requested eminent citizens with an abiding so- ' conscience - to send telegrams to the Governor re- t questing him to either release Sidhu or to produce him 1 before a magistrate if there was to be a case against him. Avtar Singh Siddhu has since been released uncon ditionally. Obviously there was nothing to justify the custody.

We, Tapan Bose, Documentary film maker, Ashok Agrwaal and Nitya Ramakrishnan, advocates, and Ram Narayan Kumar form the Secretariat of the Committee for Information and Initiative on Punjab. The Com mittee itself was a spontaneous response to the need that some of us felt to know and act. To account for our

vabdiqUib^om activities so far,we have attempted to publicize the Tiwana Commission Report,to secure relief to victims of police repression that we came across by moving the courts or other fora. We have compiled documentation of the cases that we have investigated which is being released as a report. We realise that our work is woe fully inadequate. The problem has acquired a com plexity and we need perspective on the nature of the State in Punjab, the emergence of the Sikh identity, *he polerisation between communities and not the least the role of the majority religion which at all crucial times becomes the State’s religion. To this end we shall be publishing our research in the near future.

We believe that the character of the repression and brutuality unleashed by the State indiscriminately on the Sikhs and the moral lowliness of the officials at the helm of the affairs, as stands highlighted in the cases cited in this report, have contributed, more than any thing else, to the growing disaffection among the Sikhs for the Indian state.This ought to be condemned une quivocally by all those who believe that the sovereignty of the State is indivisible from its obligation to protect the human rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

Nitya Ramakrishnan Ashok Agrwaal Tapan K. Bose Ram Narayan Kumar

Committee for Information & Initiative on Punjab

DiqitizecUj^anjal^Tqita^b^^ h STATE TERRORISM IN PUNJAB, A REPORT

The right to life and liberty of the people in Punjab had been under violation for a long time even before the Parliament amended the Constitution empowering the State to suspend it. Observers of developments in Punjab, in fact, see a close relationship between the es calation of separatist terrorism and the steady augmen tation of State violence outside the established proce dure of law.

A senior leader of the Akali Dal told me about the case of one Kulwant Singh Nagoke, a follower of Bhin- daranwale, who had been killed while in police custody for interrogation in the beginning of 1982. The story given out officially to explain his death baffled even the credulous. According to the story, a police head con stable was taking him to a hospital for medical check-up on the pillion of his bicycle without escorts. The prisoner tried to escape and was shot at, resulting in his death. No one believed the story. Bhindaranwale was immensely angered by this incident and swore to have such police officials who extrajudicially executed his followers punished.

Escalation of terrorist violence brought about com munal polarization not only of the population of Punjab but also of the State security forces. The Punjab police, a large number of its personnel being Sikhs, was seen as the fifth column in sympathy with Sikh separatists. The Central Reserve Police Force, which functioned under

^^^c^âniaîQita^brBr^^ww^panTabdiqUibôm the authority of the Central Government, epitomized the rage and the reaction of Hindu India against Sikh atrocities. The Force was deployed to teach the desperate lot a lesson. And lessons they were taught.

Kripal Singh, a leader of the Janata Party in Amrit sar, told me about the killing of innocent persons by the CRPF during the funeral procession of Harbans Lai Khanna, a Bharatiya Janata Party leader, assassinated apparently by Sikh militants,in April 1984.

Hindu organizations had given the call for a bandh - shut down - in Amritsar as a token of anguish at the as sassination. The CRPF took it upon itself to enforce the call. Many Sikhs did not close their shops. CRPF per sonnel ran amuck and rampaged the markets which were not shut down in sympathy with Hindu anguish. In a fruit shop three Sikhs resisted the brigandage. They were shot dead. In another incident that occurred the same day, a CRPF patrol stopped a group of four men who were coming to Amritsar from a village nearby. The group consisted of two brothers, Surinder Singh and Narendra Singh, their father Mohinder Singh and Kuldip Singh, their maternal uncle. Kuldip Singh was clean shaven and looked a Hindu while the rest were hirsute. The CRPF patrol let Kuldip Singh get away and shot down the rest. The government initially claimed that they were terrorists but later on equivocated by ex plaining the incident as an instance of inadvertent ex cess. The next of kin of the victims were monetarily compensated. But the guilty officials remained un punished. In early 1983, the President of the Akali Dal, Longowal, appointed a Committee to investigate the widespread reports that the police was killing Sikhs ex-

8 i DiqitizecnD^amal^iqita^bw trajudicially under the blinder of "armed encounters". Three prominent lawyers, G.S.Grewal, who later be came the Advocate General of the State; Manjit Singh Khera and Ajit Singh Sirhadi were on this committee. They were able to examine eye-witnesses only in three cases of reported deaths in encounters. The Committee came to the conclusion that in all the three cases the encounters were faked and that the detainees had in fact been killed in State custody. All these instances precede the Operation Blue Star and the Delhi riots. Let us proceed to the nearer past.

In December 1986, a Sikh youth in Shah Kot village which came within the Assembly constituency of Bal- want Singh, then finance minister, was killed by CRPF personnel. Balwant Singh prevailed on the police ad ministration to register a case of culpable homicide against the officers responsible. Though the case was registered there was no follow up. The initiative taken by Balwant Singh in this case brought about a rift be tween the police administration which functioned under the supervision of the Union Home Ministry and the elected government of the State, culminating into the latter’s dismissal by the President of India in May 1987. Dismissal of the government was preceded by ink sling ing between the Finance Minister and Mr.Rebeiro, the Director General of Police of Punjab,an iron fist ap pointee of the Prime Minister. Balwant Singh criticized the police chief for being cavalier with the press in making statements derogatory to the elected govern ment and for upholding an extrajudicial approach to tackle Sikh militancy. Rebeiro charged the ministers and legislators of the Akali Dal of harbouring terrorists. In August 1987 the Punjab Human Rights Organisation

^^ê^ânia^TQita^brBr^^ww^paniabdiqUibôm released a report on its inquiries into the allegations of killings of Sikh detainees in theState custody. According to the findings of the organisation seventy three persons in police custody had been killed in the district of Am ritsar alone within a period of little more than three months between May 12 and August 22, 1987. All these killings had been explained away as deaths in armed en counters between terrorists and the security forces. The Punjab Human Rights Organisation also released the list of people killed, giving along with their names, the dates and places of their actual arrest and the dates and locations when and where they were alleged to have died in encounters with the security forces. While releasing the report to the press at Chandigarh, Justice A.S.Bains, a retired judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and the Chairman of the organisation, claimed that he knew of at least two cases in which per sons, after they had written complaints to the senior police officers about extrajudicial execution of their relatives were themselves killed in faked encounters.

"FAKED ENCOUNTER" is an elastic term which covers deaths caused by security forces in a variety of circumstances and reactions not involving a direct clash with persons killed as claimed by the authorities. The following are some examples:

On June 2, 1987, patrol of the Border Security Force (BSF) had an alleged encounter with armed ter rorists in village Veroke under the Dera Baba Nanak subdivision of Gurdaspur district. Two members of a family, MrsJasbir Kaur, a pregnant woman, and her husband Harminder Singh were killed, and Jasbir Kaur’s mother Niranjan Kaur was injured. One con-

Digitized bv Paniab Digital I ihran, I www.naniahdiaiiiKgra. stable of the BSF, Bishamber Dass, was also killed. Ac cording to the version of the incident given by the BSF, the family, whose members were killed, was harbouring terrorists. When the BSF men went to search the house, the terrorists hiding there had engaged them in a shoot out. The house belonged to Niranjan Singh, a retired soldier of the Sikh regiment, who on seeing the BSF men had escaped.

This version of the incident was contested by the villagers. They claimed that the family of Niranjan Singh had nothing to do with terrorists and had never harboured them. In view of the unrest created by this episode in the village, the government ordered a magis terial inquiry which was conducted by a subdivisional magistrate of Gurdaspur district. The inquiry report indicted the BSF of killing innocent persons in a sangui nary reaction without justification. According to the report of the magisterial inquiry, the BSF battalion based in Dera Baba Nanak sector of Gurdaspur district had information that terrorists were hiding in the house of Nimma in Thitherke village. However,the BSF patrol sent out to raid, mixed up the information and went to the house of Niranjan Singh in the village Veroke. The house was surrounded and the family was woken up. The BSF men started interrogating them about the "hidden terrorists". While the interrogation was in progress, the rifle in the hands of one of the constables outside the house went off, perhaps accidentally. Im mediately, there was a volley of return firing. BSF per sonnel inside the house assumed that terrorists hiding somewhere in the vicinity were firing at them. The as sumption was wrong. A company of Railway Protection Force was camping at a distance of three hundred yards from the house under raid. Hearing the gun shot which came in their direction, personnel of the Railway Protection Force fired back. Two BSF men were hit and the constable Bishamber Dass died. Furious at the death of one of their numbers, the BSF men turned their guns on the family of Niranjan Singh. Niranjan Singh himself escaped but witnessed his son Hariminder Singh, and his pregnant daughter-in-law Jasbir Kaur murdered in cold blood and his mother-in-law Niranjan Kaur severely injured.

The report of the magisterial inquiry recommended that a case of murder under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) be registered against the responsible BSF personnel. The district authorities granted a monetary compensation of Rs.2000 in addition to an ex-gratia grant of Rs.20,000 for each person killed to the surviving members of the family. The BSF battalion which was based in Dera Baba Nanak sector was posted out to another locality. The recommendation to launch prosecution against the personnel responsible for the murders was ignored.

Another magisterial inquiry, conducted by S.P.Mahajan, a sub-divisional magistrate of Amritsar district, into the reported death of one Sardool Singh in an armed encounter with the police, indicted the authorities of concocting a false story after killing an innocent man and forging evidence to support the lie. According to the version of the incident given by the police officials of Amritsar, Sardool Singh was moving on a scooter numbered PUO 6254 along with another man on the pillion on 24-8-1987. When the police stopped them for a routine check at a barrier on the

Digitized bV Paniab Digital Library I www.oanhhdMliknm------Mall Road, the man on the pillion started firing at them from a .32 calibre pistol. The police returned the fire. Sardool Singh was hit by a bullet and he collapsed. The man on the pillion managed to run away.

The inquiry conducted by SDM S.P. Mahajan estab lished altogether different facts.

Sardool Singh was going alone on his scooter when the policemen at the ckeckpost on the Mall Road waved him to stop. But before he could stop, probably out of nervousness, he lost control of his scooter which hit a woman pedestrian. The woman fell down on the road and became unconscious. Thinking that he had killed a pedestrian, and may have to face arrest and prosecu tion, Sardool Singh, who was a small businessman of Amritsar, drove away in a dash. A police jeep chased him and made him stop near a hospital. A policeman dragged him down from his scooter and started beating him with his rifle butt. The rifle with which he was hit ting Sardool Singh went off accidently and hit Sukhdev Singh, another police constable. Sukhdev Singh died on the spot. In the anger and frustration ensuing from the accident, another policeman shot down Sardool Singh.

In his thirteen page report, the subdivisional magistrate concluded that Sardool Singh was neither a terrorist nor had he anything to do with Sikh militancy. The report held as false the claims made by the police officials that they had recovered a .32 calibre country made pistol from Sardool Singh and that a companion of the killed terrorist had managed to escape. No one was riding with him on the scooter, the inquiry con cluded. The bullet which killed police constable

13 Sukhdev Singh, the report said, was not from a 32 calibre pistol but from a police rifle.

SDM Mahajan recommended that the widow of Sardool Singh, Mrs Kulwant Singh, be compensated monetarily with an ex-gratia payment of Rs.20,000 and that a member of the family be given a government job to enable the family to survive. S.P.Mahajan, the courageous magistrate, soon after he submitted this report, was transferred out of Amritsar.

In yet another magisterial inquiry into the reported death of one Parmindar Singh of Gurudaspur district in an armed encounter with the Border Security Force in the night of August 31, 1987, the security force was in dicted of killing an innocent person in over-reaction and then forging evidence to cover up the murder. Ac cording to the official version of the incident, a BSF patrol saw a group of five or six young Sikhs standing on the road near Geeta Bhavan in Gurdaspur around 1030 p.m. on August 31,1987. On seeing the BSF patrol approaching them, the boys retreated behind a bush by the road and started firing at them. BSF men returned the fire. After some time, when the firing ceased, the BSF men went over to the bush behind which the boys had taken cover and found a person lying dead with a pistol in his hands. Others had escaped.

The District Magistrate ordered an inquiry into the incident when a large number of residents of the area where Par minder Singh had been killed met him in a deputation and expressed their anguish at what they called a false encounter. Kulwant Singh, a sub-divisional magistrate of Batala, was deputed to conduct the in-

I Digitized bV Paniab Digital Library I www.oaniabdiaMb.ora quiry. The report of the inquiry was submitted in Oc tober 1987.

The report came out with the following findings:

Parminder Singh, the deceased, who lived in Secretary Mohalla of Gurdaspur had gone to visit a friend near Geeta Bhavan, who was ironically enough a Hindu. The incident occurred when he was taking leave of his friend to return to his house. On seeing the patrol jeep of the 54th Battalion of the BSF, the boys, who had been standing on the road chatting, started to move away. The BSF men challenged them to stop and im mediately opened fire, killing Parminder Singh. The inquiry concluded that the boy killed by the BSF did not have a weapon with him. The pistol shown to have been recovered from his dead body was a plant, the report said. The magistrate indicted the personnel of the BSF responsible for the murder by their names and sug gested that they be prosecuted under the relevant sec tions of the Indian Penal Code. The recommendation was, as in other cases cited before, ignored.

In the course of my own travels in Punjab I received innumerable reports of deaths in fake encounters from people who claimed authentically that these had ac tually taken place in police custody. I was able to inves tigate only three such cases thoroughly. I discovered that they were indeed plain murders of detainees in cus tody committed by their custodians. In two cases I found that detainees had been done to death after prolonged interrogation under severe torture. One of these cases was from the Muktsar subdivision of Faridkot district, the second from Guru Harsahay subdivision of Feroz-

15 pur district The third case of extra-judicial execution had taken place in Mohali, in district Ropar near Chan digarh. In that case the police shot down an unarmed person while trying to abduct him from a public proces sion in front of hundreds of people. He probably died immediately from the injury. I say probably, because the police carried away his body in a jeep to some unknown place after shooting him and declared his death only the next day following a public protest at the incident. Here are the details of the three cases:

CASE I

Bhupinder Singh Sarang, son of Ujagar Singh Sarang, aged fifteen, who lived in Mohalla Sarang Pura, Near Khalsa Higher Secondary School, Muktsar, Dis trict Faridkot, was killed in a stage- managed encounter in the night of May 24, 1987 in the outskirts of Middu Kheda village near Malout town.

Bhupinder Singh Sarang was a student of class X at Khalsa High Secondary School in Muktsar. His father Ujaga!r Singh Sarang, a fifty year old man, is a profes sional halladeer known in Punjab as ‘dhadi*, who sings at Sikh festivals and religious functions organised by Gurudwaras. Bhupinder Singh had in April 1987 ap peared for his school examination and was waiting for the results. He was a football enthusiast and went to play the game regularly with friends during his vaca tions.

In the evening of 20-5-1987, around 4 p.m. he returned home after a game of football. While he was changing his clothes, there was a knock on the door of

Digitized by Panjab Digital Library I www.pamabdMUum his house. His mother Mrs.Amaijit Kaur opened the doors. She saw policemen in uniform. They wanted to see her son. When Bhupinder came out he was promptly handcuffed and taken away. The policemen, however, assured Bhupinder’s hysterical mother that her son will come back home safe after some time. He did not.

In the evening of May 21st, Ujagar Singh Sarang, the boy’s father, went to see Avtar Singh Sidhu, a leader of the Youth Akali Dal, at his house in Muktsar and told him about the illegal arrest of his son. Avtar Singh Sidhu went to Sadar police station in Muktsar to inquire the 22nd morning. No senior officer was present at the police station. Sidhu requested a Head Constable at the police station to permit him to meet Bhupinder Singh. He first refused. However, after some persuasion he took him to the cell in which Bhupinder Singh was locked up. Some other prisoners too were in the same cell. One of them was Gurbinder Singh short Binder, son ofa wealthy farmer living inthe village Uday Karan, whom Sidhu knew vaguely. Bhupinder Singh was moan ing in pain and did not recognise Sidhu. He had been tortured severely the previous night. There were blood stains on his face and legs. Gurbinder Singh, who had witnessed his torture the previous night, told Sidhu that the Senior Superintendent of Police, Govind Ram, had personally shot him with his service revolver in his leg.*

Later in the day Avtar Singh Sidhu and Bhai Shaminder Singh, a member of Parliament, tried to con tact the senior officials of the district to request them to have Bhupinder Singh either released immediately or produced before a magistrate on a specific charge.

DiQitize^b^Pania^DiQita^Ubmi^^www^DaniabdiQiUb^om Hiey, however, could reach no senior official directly. Bhupinder’s interrogation under torture continued for the next two days. In the night of May 24, 1987, Bhupinder Singh was taken out of the lock up while he was in a state of coma. Gurbinder Singh was still in the same cell. A deputy superintendent of police, Rajinder Pal Singh, personally supervised his removal from the cell. Though Bhupinder Singh was delirious, he was blind-folded. A team of policemen consisting of DSP Tand, Inspector Bajwa and some constables took Him away with them.

The same night Bhupinder Singh Sarang was killed in an encounter staged in the outskirts of Middu Kheda village near Malout town, under the jurisdiction of Lambi police station, some 40 kilometres from Muktsar.

A first information report numbered 113,DDR.No30, dated 24-5-1987 was filed for record at the police station Lambi. The report which bears the signature of Joginder Singh, Station House Officer of Lambi police station, made the following claim of en counter with armed terrorists in the course of which Bhupinder was shown to have been killed.

The Station House Officer Joginder Singh, along with the assistant Sub-Inspector Jagir Singh and ten other policemen, was positioned on the road across Middu Kheda village in a jeep No.HYN 5967 and a motorcycle No. PBC 8402. At about 1 am. a Fiat car without a number plate came from the direction of Abhohar, which is a small town on the border with Pakistan. The SHO waved the car to stop. But the driver of the car, noticing the police patrol began to reverse it in a rush. The SHO and his companions, seeing the car reverse, lunged forward challenging the car to hold on. At this, three young men got down from the car and began to fire at them. The police return fired in self-defence. One of the boys fell down after a police bullet hit him. Others managed to run away, in the cover of darkness...etc.

Ujagar Singh Sarang, Bhupinder’s father became suspicious when he read a news item in Jagbani, a ver nacular daily, dated May 26 which reported that a ter rorist has been killed in an armed encounter with the police near Middu Kheda village in the night of 24-5- 1987. He went to Muktsar police station to inquire after his son. He got no information there. When he asked the officials to let him see his son, they refused. He then went to the reported site of the encounter and from there to Lambi police station. He asked the police per sonnel present there to show him the body of the ter rorist killed in the encounter. He was told that the body had been sent away for post-mortem at the civil hospi tal of Gidarvah, a small town nearby. Ujagar Singh went over to the hospital and managed to talk to the doctor incharge. He learnt that the body which had been there for post-mortem had already been returned to the police station Lambi. Ujagar Singh bribed a minor func tionary at the hospital, who assisted the doctor perform ing autopsies, to give him a description of the body and to show him the clothes which were on it. He was shown a track suit which his son had been wearing on the day of his arrest. He returned to Muktsar the same evening.

On May 26, Ujagar Singh was taken into custody by the Muktsar police. He was detained for more then

19 eight hours and was released the same evening with the warning that if he propagated the case of his son, he too would meet the same fate. He was rearrested on June 7th, the day on which a religious ceremony to propitiate the soul of bis dead son was to take place. Relatives and friends of the family were expected to take part and the police did not want him to be present on the occasion to talk to them about what had happened. He was released the next morning. Ujagar Singh was arrested a third time on January 13, 1988 when he was on his way to at tend a religious function at which he was going to sing. At the police station he was admonished once again for talking about his deceased son in a religious congrega tion. He was released on 14th evening at the interven tion of Bhai Shaminder Singh, a member of Parliament.

MI am waiting for them to come to kill me", Ujagar Singh told me, his face expressionless in deathless detachment, at the end of an inteview I had with him at his house in Muktsar on 2-4-1988. His wife Amarjit Kaur sat by him in stupified silence, with Bhupinder Singh’s* infant sister in her lap. Gurbinder Singh, who had been in the same cell as Bhupinder Singh when Avtar Singh Sidhu had gone to meet him at the Sadar police station in Muktsar, has since been released on bail. He was formally arrested and charged with offences under Arms Act and Ter rorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, TDPA. After eight months of judicial custody in Farid- kot jail, he was granted bail by the High Court of Pun jab and Haryana.

Gurbinder Singh, whom I met at his house in Uday

M Karan village near Muktsar on 2-4-88, testified to having witnessed the torture of Bhupinder Singh. He named the Senior Superintendent of Police, Govind Ram, Deputy Superintendent Rajindar Pal Tand and Inspector Bajwa as having personally conducted Bhupinder Singh’s interrogation and torture. He named DSP Tand and Inspector Bajwa as having been some of the officials who had come to take Bhupinder Singh away from the lock up in the night of 24-5-87.

He also told me that on May 26,1987, when he was still in the same cell, the officers of Sadiq police station in the neighbourhood of Muktsar, had brought two young men, Malkiat Singh alias Mitta and Kekkar Singh of village Bhagsinghwala, to Muktsar police station. He was asked whether he recognised the two. He said he did not. They too were taken out the same night by a group of police officers and were killed in a staged en counter near Kanyawali village.

CASE II

Gurubaksh Singh, aged sixteen, lived in Mothan- wala village in Guru Harsahay sub-division of Ferozepur district, along with his widowed mother, Mrs. Kartar Kaur and his elder brother Pratap Singh. He was killed in a stage managed encounter in the night of 15- 12-87, along with Balwant Singh, who worked in the family farm, after twenty five days of their illegal deten tion at Jalalabad police station. His sister Balbir Kaur died from torture inflicted on her during eight days of her illegal detention, three months after her release on 20-12-1987.

21 Gurubaksh Singh's father had died some years ago.Thereafter^ the boy dropped out of the school and started assisting his elder brother in managing their large family farm. Their elder sister, Balbir Kaur, was married to Mahal Singh, a farmer of Wadyon village, some twenty kilometers from Guru Harsahay town. Mahal Singh visited them often and helped them with the agricultural work. They worked hard and had a good income. The happy humdrum of their life was dis turbed by an incident of murder that took place in a neighbouring village on November 3,1987.

On November 3, 1987, Mukhtiyar Sangh, the head of the village council of Ghanga, five kilometers from Mothanwali, was killed by suspected Sikh militants. The police claimed to have recovered a shirt which was left behind on the scene of the crime by one of the assassins. The shirt had been stitched by a tailor Pappu, who had his shop in Guru Harsahay town. Police interrogated the tailor and on the basis of indications acquired from him went to Balwant Singh's house in Mothanwali vil lage, the same Balwant Singh who worked in the farm of Pratap Singh and Gurubaksh Singh. He was not at home. His parents Mrs.Kartar Kaur and Inder Singh, panicked. They would not tell where their son was. Both were taken away to the police station Guru Harsahay. From their interrogation the police come to know that Balwant Singh worked for Pratap Singh and Gurubaksh Singh. Police raided their house in the afternoon of November 23. Both the brothers were at their farm. Some villagers tipped them off about the police raid of their house and advised them to stay away from the vil lage for some time. Gurubaksh Singh went away to his sister's house in village Wadyon near Malout town.

22 Pratap Singh went to Muktsar in Faridkot district to take shelter in the house of a prominent Akali Dal leader. Police took their mother Mrs. Kartar Kaur, who is fifty-five, into custody. When she failed to return from the police station Guru Harsahay for several days, elders of the village led by one Mr Darshan Singh, went there and persuaded the officials to release her from the illegal custody. The village elders undertook to lo cate Pratap Singh and Gurubaksh Singh and to bring them along to surrender before the police. They kept their promise. A group of prominent citizens of the area led by Mr Joginder Singh Jogi, a member of SGPC and the and the chairman of the marketing committee of Guru Harsahay; Mr.Pritam Singh Madan, Chairman Marketing Committee of Jalalabad; Mr. Balwant Singh Bhandari and the head of the village council of Mothan- wali accompanied Gurubaksh Singh to the police sta tion, Jalalabad. Himmat Singh, the station house officer, took him into his custody. This happened on November 20,1987. On November 22,1987 Balwant Singh was ar rested.

Pratap Singh, who had taken shelter in the house of an Akali Dal leader in Muktsar, surrendered himself to the custody of Guru Harsahay police station on Novem ber 28. He was accompanied to the police station by Sajjan Singh, a member of the Legislative Assembly.

There had been no formal charges against either Pratap Singh or Gurubaksh Singh. They had no criminal background. Only Balwant Singh was suspected of in volvement in the murder of Mukhtyar Singh. On 30-11- 87, Pratap Singh was produced in the court of H.R.Bhukal, a judicial magistrate of Ferozpur. The

23 police claimed that Pratap Singh had been arrested after an armed encounter. They charged him with several offences under the Arms Act, Indian Penal Code, and the TDPA Act in a case registered at the Jalalabad police station under FIR No. 461 of 87. The court took cognizance of his arrest but ordered that an identification parade of the accused be held before 2-12-87, meaning that the main deponents of the case against him be asked to identify him while he stood mixed in motely crowd, under observation of the magistrate. Probably because the parade would have given away the hoax, the police filed an application in the court stating that they did not desire to hold the parade.

This development made Mrs. Kartar Kaur very anxious. The police had denied the fact that Pratap Singh had surrendered himself before the police in the company of a member of the Legislative Assembly. But the main cause of her worry was the non-production of Gurubaksh Singh before a court. Why were they holding him back? He had been for a week longer in police cus tody than Pratap Singh?

On December 1st, she went to Ferozpur to meet the senior officers of the district to acquaint them with the illegal custody of her son. She could not meet them. Then she went to the post office and despatched a telegraphic message No. A 92 IR - 96, time 16.50, ad dressed to the Deputy Inspector General of Ferozpur range, expressing apprehension that her son Gurubaksh Singh, in illegal custody since November 20, may be im plicated in false cases.

^ i ltd | Gurubaksh Singh was not released. Instead the ml police from Ferozpur picked up Mahal Singh, husband I of Balbir Kaur, the sister of the two boys, on 9-12-87. v Three days later Balbir Kaur too was taken away from j. her house in village Wadyon.

On 17-12-87, newspapers published a report, quot- . ing a police handout, which declared death of two ter rorists, Balwant Singh and Gurubaksh Singh, in an armed encounter with the police, said to have taken f place in the agricultural fields of Ladhuwale, a village ^ under Jalalabad police station in the night of 15-12-87. * A Hindi newspaper, Punjab Kesari, published photographs of the two terrorists supposedly taken after their death "in its issue of 18.12.87". 1 f On 20/12/1987 a mutilated Balbit Kaur came back 8 to her house in a police jeep. For three months thereafter she remained under treatment and died in March f 1988 without ever being able to leave her bed. Eight ! days of police custody had sealed her fate. Mahal Singh, her husband, was released some days before her death to enable him to attend her cremation. Their five year old daughter, Mohinder Kaur, lives now with her t grandmother. Pratap Singh is still in jail. No man is left i in the house to look after the women who survive the murrain of death infesting Punjab.

CASE

Amaijit Singh aged eighteen, who lived in house No. 1180, Phase 1, Mohali, Distric Ropar, was killed on 4-11-1987 by policemen who weree trying to abduct him from a procession organised by the Gurudwara in

25 Mohali to commemorate the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, in front of dozens of other participants in the event.

The afternoon news bulletin of All India Radio on 4-11-1987 carried an announcement that a terrorist Amaijit Singh was killed in Mohali when he was trying to escape from the police custody. The facts of the case are as following:

Amarjit Singh’s father, Mohinder Gopal Singh, has been closely associated with the organisation of religious activities at the local Gurudwara. Amaijit Singh himself made his living from driving athree wheel scooter as a taxi in Chandigarh. On 11-2-1987 he had- been arrested on the charge of possessing a stolen scooter. The case made out against him under First In formation Report Number 581 dated 2-7-1987 was pending for trial in the court of Mrs.Rekha Rani, a Judi cial Magistrate in Chandigarh . He was in Chandigarh jail as an undertrial in the above mentioned case until 27-10-1987. The court of Sessions at Chandigarh or dered his release on bail on 27-10-87.

On 4-11-87, the Gurudwara at Mohali organised a procession of Sikh devotees to celebrate the birth an niversary of Guru Nanak. Amarjit’s father was one of the main organizers of the event. At about 1.30 p.m. Amarjit Singh along with his brother, Harjit Singh, and Manmohan Singh, a friend, was waiting for the proces sion to commence on the road outside the Gurudwara. A posse of policemen under the supervision of Assistant Sub-Inspector Madan Singh was in charge of the security. The procession took off from the Gurudwara

26 soon after 130 p.m. Amaijit Singh along with his brother and his friend joined the march.

Before long, a police jeep was seen driving into the petrol pump, located on die road across the Sikh templeJagdish Singh, the Station House Officer of Mohali police station, got down from the jeep and walked over to his subordinate Madan Singh who had been moving with the procession. They conferred in a low conspiratorial tone after which Madan Singh, with five constable following him, went up to Amaijit Singh and caught hold of him by the scruff of his neck. The policemen tried to pull him aside in the direction of the petrol pump where Inspector Jagdish Singh had parked his jeep. When Amarjit Singh’s brother and his friend Manmohan Singh questioned the policemen as to why they were taking him away, the policemen pushed them back. Harjit Singh fell down. Harjit Singh says: "SHO Jagdish Singh ordered constable Baldev Singh to "shoot Amaijit Singh". The constable Baldev Singh fired on him from the back. On being hit by the shot, Amaijit Singh collapsed immediately.

The report of the post-mortem Number PMR AG 9/67 and carried out at the Civil Hospital of Ropar points out that a wound measuring 1 cm x 3/4 cm on the posterior aspect of the right side of the chest at the level of the nipples causing injury to heart was the cause of his death.

Two independent witnesses, one of them a Hindu, corroborate the account given by Haijit. Shiv Char an Sharma, who had come to Mohali from his village Tida in district Ropar to do shopping in the town, stopped at

27 the Gurudwara on his way back home to participate in ^ the event. He was one of the witnesses to the shooting f of Amaijit Singh and the account given by him tallies P with the one given by Haijit Singh. Another independ- P ent witness who corroborates this version is Mr. Rattan Singh Bains, resident of House No.505, Phase 1, 'p Mohali. He was filling fuel in his moped at the petrol pump across the Gurudwara when the incident occurred. Ratan Singh adds in his account of what he saw: NAt the time of the occurrence of the incident no ^ weapon was in the possession of the deceased..." {a\

Noise from the gunshot disturbed the procession. L Many participants went towards Amaijit Singh who lay ^ on the ground. Amaijit Singh’s father Madan Gopal Singh, his brother Haijit Singh, Manmohan Singh and several organizers of the function moved in that direc- ®11 tion. Immediately Assistant Sub-Inspector Madan Singh T and other constables with him took positions around the m body of Amaijit. Madan Singh warned the crowd that ^ they would be shot if they moved forward. In the w meanwhile inspector Jagdish Singh brought his jeep close to where Amaijit Singh was lying still and with A the help of his subordinates had his body put into the 4 jeep. Manmohan Singh tried to come in the way of the w jeep. He was lifted physically into the jeep by the con- a! stables and driven away. t si

Roughly four hundred participants in the event la marched towards Mohali police station. Reaching there u they found its doors locked up from inside. The crowd got restive and started raising slogans against the police ] officials. A subdivisional magistrate from Kharar ^ reached the police station in his car after some time. ^

28 Several other senior police and civil officials too arrived there. The district Commissioner of Ropar, Mr. J.R.Kundal, and the Senior Superintendent of Police talked to the group of people who were leading the con gregation. They conceded that the shooting of Amaijit Singh was unjustified. They also promised to hold an in quiry into the episode and initiate criminal proceedings against those responsible for the excess.

In the meanwhile the news spread that Amarjit Singh had died. Police officials had earlier informed the crowd that the injured body of Amarjit Singh had been taken to the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences at Chandigarh for treatment. This was a lie. He had never been taken to the said institute. Several per sons in the crowd wanted to know where Manmohan Singh, a friend of Amaijit Singh, who too had been carried away in the jeep, was. J.R.Kundal assured them that Manmohan Singh would come back very soon. He never came back.

At 3.40 p.m. a first information report regarding the inddent was lodged at the Mohali Police station. The report No. 109, dated 4-11-87 held the station house of ficer Jagdish Singh and his companions responsible for the shooting of Amaijit Singh and the abduction of Manmohan Singh. The SHO who was being accused of the crimes himself registered the report. He took no ac tion against himself.

Two hundred residents of Mohali signed a memorandum of protest against the killing of Amarjit Singh. The memorandum submitted to the governor of Punjab read:

29 "We the residents of Mohali testify that Bhai Amar- jit Singh s/o Mohinder Gopal Singh, resident of 1180 Phase 1, Mohali was an honest servant of Gurus and a man of exemplary character. He had no connection with any political party, nor was he a terrorist. This innocent man was shot dead by Mohali police when he was taking part in a religious procession organized by Govindsar Gurudwara, situated in Mohali, on the occassion of Guru Nanak’s birth anniversary on 4-11-87. The act was heinous and violative of the norms of civi lization. Those who are guilty for this inhuman act must be punished and the bereaved family of Amarjit Singh monetarily compensated."

A case like that of Amarjit Singh in which a person is killed by the security forces in the style of hit squads in front of dozens of witnesses is rare in comparison to the pattern in which persons are first whisked away by unidentified men, appearing out of the blue in vehicles without number plates, from their houses in surprise raids; taken to undisclosed places for interrogation, and killed either under torture or in so-calledeneounters.

Sometimes persons taken into illegal custody by such clandestine operations are, after a period of time, brought to trial on the basis of confessions exacted from them in the course of their interrogation. Special legis lations like the National Security Act or the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act are invoked against them which enable the authorities to keep them detained for long periods without trial. In some in stances persons who are taken into illegal custody are released. However, their arrest and interrogation are

30 never formally admitted. But such instances are rare and occur only when either the High Court of Punjab and Haryana or the Supreme Court of India issue direc tions for their production. The authorities ignore such directions when the evidence of a detainee having been taken into custody placed before the court is only secon dary. Detention is also denied when a detainee ordered to be produced before a court, has already been done to death. I shall dte four examples which highlight these aspects of illegal detentions in Punjab.

EXAMPLE 1

On 17-1-1988, at about 10 a.m., two white cars without number plates drove into the taxi stand in Sec tor 22, near Aroma Hotel of Chandigarh. Some men in civil clothes but armed with sophisticated weapons got down from the cars. They were looking for Balwinder Singh, who drove a taxi owned by Sohan Singh. They found Balvinder Singh and forced him to get into one of the cars and drove away with him to some unknown des tination.

It was a Sunday and Balvinder Singh's father, Gurudev Singh, who was also a driver at the General Hospital in Sector 16 of Chandigarh, was at home. He lived in village Bhadedi, Sector 41,in the outskirts of Chandigarh. At about 4 p.m. Sohan Singh, the owner of the taxi Balwinder Singh used to drive, came to meet him and told him about the abduction of his son in the morning from the taxi stand. Gurudev Singh left the house immediately and went with Sohan Singh to the taxi stand to make further inquiries. But he could not make much headway. The next morning Gurudev Singh

Digitized bv Paniab Digital Library I www.naniabdioWLnm. lodged a complaint of abduction of his son at the police station in Sector 34. He also met officials at the police stations of Sector 26, Sector 11 and Sector 39. He was told informally that Balwinder Singh had been picked up by Patiala police for interrogation.

On 27-1-1988 he went to Patiala to meet Inspector Surjit Singh Grewal, together with a personal acquain tance of his. Grewal admitted that Balwinder Singh was in the custody of Patiala police and was under inter rogation. He promised that he would try to get Bal winder Singh produced before a magistrate within a couple of days. Balwinder Singh was not produced before a magistrate nor was his arrest covered under a preventive detention law. Gurudev Singh learnt frothing further about his son until the middle of February 1988. On 16th of February, a person who had been under the custody of Patiala Police came to see Gurudev Singh. He had been released some days ago from illegal cus tody in Mai Ki Sarai interrogation centre in Patiala, where he had met and spoken to Balwinder Singh. Ac cording to this man, Balwinder Singh had been tortured severely.

Gurudev Singh kept up his efforts to bring pressure on the police officers in Patiala to either release his son or to arraign him formally before a court of law.

Together with the elected members of his village Panchayat- Ajayab Singh, Gurudev Singh, Kartar Singh and Swaran Singh - he met the Director General of Police of Punjab, Mr. Rebeiro, in the first week of April 88. Rebeiro directed him to see the Senior Superinten dent of Police at Patiala, Sital Das. When they met Sital

Digitized bv Paniab Digital Library I www.Damabdiailib.ora Das at his house in Patiala, soon after their meeting with Rebeiro, he denied that Balwinder Singh was in his custody. He expressed inability to help them. Seven months after his abduction, Balwinder Singh remains untraced.

EXAMPLE II

Twenty two year old Manjit Singh was an automobile mechanic who ran a small garage on the ground floor of his house at 273, Phase 3, Mohali, in dis trict Ropar. His father, Sohan Singh, lived in a Gurud- wara of Chandigarh where he was a priest

Jatinder Pal Singh, who had recently acquired a diploma in electronics from the Government Polytech nic in Bbatinda, was Manjit’s friend. Jatinder Pal was still without a job and lived with his mother, Mrs.Mohinder Kaur, at 127, Phase V, Mohali. His father Amrik Singh owned an agricultural farm in dis trict Muradabad in Uttar Pradesh and lived mostly there.

On 154-1988 Jatinder Pal Singh called on Manjeet Singh and stayed at his house overnight. They were woken up in the morning of 16-1-1988 at about seven by loud knocks on the door- of the house.When they opened the door, a dozen men in civil clothes forced their way into the house and after conducting a search of the premises, took them into their custody. These men had come in cars which had no number plates. They neither identified themselves nor did they have warrants of arrest.The hands of Manjit Singh and Jatinder Pal Singh were tied with their turbans and they

Digitized bv Paniab Digital U b n m O j^ L n a n M d M ib ^ were physically lifted into the waiting cars. The abduc tion was witnessed by several neighbours who, however, did not interfere. After Manjit Singh and Jatinder Pal Singh had been driven away in unmarked cars to some unknown destination, some of the neighbours went to the Gurudwara in Sector 59 where Manjit’s father was a priest and told him about the happenings in the morn ing. Sohan Singh sent a message to Mrs. Mohinder Kaur, Jatinder Pal Singh’s mother, whom he knew. Later in the evening both of them, together with some sympathizers went to Mohali police station and met in spector Jagjit Singh, who was on duty. Jagjit Singh denied knowledge of the incident.He refused to take down a formal complaint of abduction of their children. Sohan Singh then went to the post office in Mohali and sent telegrams to the Governor, the Director General of Police, the Senior Superintendent of Police, Ropar and Deputy Superintendent of Police of Mohali, informing them of his son’s abduction and requesting them to en sure his safety under the law. These telegrams with the serial numbers 203,204,205, and 206 were issued from the post office at SAS Nagar, Mohali at 7 .p .m of 16- 1-1988.

On 17-1-1988 policemen in plain clothes raided the house of one Balwinder Singh at No. 1321 of Phase V, Mohali for a reason that can only be guessed to be in I connection with the arrest of the two boys. Balwinder Singh was not then home. He had gone to his in-laws who lived in the neighbourhood. Policemen threatened to take away other members of the family if they would not take them to the place where Balwinder Singh was. Some of them led the policemen to the house of Balwinder’s in-laws. He was takeen into custody and

^ Digitized by Panjab Digital Library / www.panjabdigUib^org______whisked away.

The same team of policemen raided the house of one Kamaljit Singh Tohra, a handicapped boy with crippled legs, who lived in the house No. 13,Phase 3 Mohali, ,the same day, and took him away too. They also went to arrest one Sohan Singh from his house at 1522, Phase 5, Mohali. Sohan Singh was not home. His brother Ashoki was picked up by the police in his place. The police told the family members that Ashoki would be released when Sohan Singh surrendered himself to the Central Investigating Agency (CIA) of Patiala Police.

This reference to the CIA of the Patiala police gave away the identity of the abductors.

On 18-1-1988, Mohinder Kaur, Jatinder Pal’s mother and Manjit Singh’s father went to Patiala to meet the officials of the CIA staff and to inquire from them about their sons. They met Inspector Suijit Singh Grewal, who assured them that their sons would be produced before a court within a day or two. Mr. Sohan Singh and Mohinder Kaur continued to visit the Inspec tor until their hopes were belied.

On February 12, 1988 Mrs. Mohinder Kaur dis patched letters addressed to the Prime Minister of In dia, the Governor of Punjab, and the Director General of Police, Punjab, begging them to intervene in the case to either get the abducted boys released or to have them charged formally under the law, if there was evidence against them.

35 A letter No.176307, dated 18-2-1988 from the Prime Minister’s office acknowledged her complaint and in formed her that it was being forwarded to the Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab for appropriate ac tion. The office of the Governor of Punjab also acknow ledged her communication and informed her that the complaint was being looked into by the concerned In spector General of Police.

In the meanwhile Kamaljit Singh, the boy with crippled legs, and Ashoki who had been whisked away by plainclothesmen on 17-1-1988, came back to their houses on January 31, 1988. They told them that their }nns were in the custody of Patiala police at Mayi Ki Sarai Interrogation Centre and were being brutually tor tured. Their condition was reported to be very grave. In the last week of February 1988, Mrs.Mohinder Kaur and S^han Singh were able to get an audience with the rw f Secretary to the Government of Punjab. He promised to inquire into the episode and advised them to meet J.F.Rebeiro, the Director General of Punjab Police. Rebeiro declined to meet them. His personal as sistant, Mr.Kapil, advised them to see Umrao Singh Kang, Superintendent of Police in the Intelligence department. They met him on April 25, 1988. Kang in formed them that Manjit Singh and Jatinder Pal Singh were not in the custody of Patiala Police.

Ajit, a vernacular daily, published an article in its issue of April 10, 1988, about the disappearance of Manjit Singh and Jatinder Pal Singh. The article suggested that the two may have been killed by the police in the month of February. The suggestion remained officially uncon- Q troverted.

Digitized by Panjab Digital LibraryJ www^paniabdiqitib^om EXAMPLE III

Nineteen year old Ranjit Singh was studying com merce in Khalsa college of Amritsar. He lived with his mother, Bachan Kaur and a sister Kanwaljit Kaur in house No.63 of Seva Nagar, Amritsar. His father Bua Singh had died some years ago. His elder brother Charanjit Singh lived in Dhanbad, the famous coal town in Bihar state, where he worked for a transport firm.

In the morning of 10-2-1988, Gurudev Singh, an In spector, andhis assistant, Mohinder Singh, from Sadar Police Station in Amritsar came to pick him up at his house."We have to question your son on some minor problems. Don’t worry, he will come back", they told Ranjit Singh’s anxious mother.

The *am<» evening Mohinder Singh came back to the house and demanded from Bachan Kaur a sum of Rs.20,000 for her son’s release. Her elder son was far away. She had no money to pay the ransom demanded from her. She sent a telegram to Charanjit Singh to im mediately come to Amritsar. In the meanwhile Mohinder Singh kept up his visits to Bachan Kauris house to repeat his demand of ransom for Ranjit Singh’s release. She told him that her elder son was on his way to Amritsar who, after his arrival, would try to raise the money to procure his brother’s release. Charanjit Singh ramc to Amritsar on 19th of February. He went to sadar police station and talked to Gurudev Singh and Mohinder Singh. He requested them to either release his brother or to produce him in a court on whatever charge they had against him. The police officials asked him to pay Rs.20,000. He told them that he could not raise the money on such a short notice. For some days he kept up his attempts to persuade the officers to release his brother. He failed.

On 21st of February Ranjit Singh was moved out of Sadar Police station. Mohinder Singh told Charanjit Singh on that day that his brother will be killed if he would not pay. Charanjit asked them to give him ten days more to raise the money. On March 9, 1988, Charanjit Singh filed a habeas corpus writ petition No.452/88 in the Punjab and Haryana High Court at Chandigarh. The petition was heard by Justice Ujagar Singh the same day. I quote from the petition:

"Ranjit Singh was arrested by the respondentes from his house on February 2,1988 at 6 a.m. From that time up till now the detainee has not been produced in any court. No case has been registered against him and his detention is totally illegal.....The respondents have been approached to secure release of the detainee... they are demanding Rs.20,000 for the detainee’s release... It is therefore prayed that (a) a writ in the na ture of habeas corpus be issued...(b) a warrant officer of this court be appointed to conduct a search...to recover the detainee from the illegal custody..."

The Judge appointed an officer of the court, Jai Singh Patial, to carry out the search of the detainee as prayed for by the petitioner.

Jai Singh Patial left Chandigarh for Amritsar in the evening of March 9, accompanied by Charanjit Singh. Charanjit Singh went out to find out where his brother was being detained on the 10th morning. He bribed a

38 k Digitized bv Paniab Digital Library I www.oaniabdiaMiLnm. clerk, Tirath Singh, in Sadar Police Station, who let him know that Ranjit Singh was in the police post of Sultan- wind, a locality in Amritsar. In the evening at 315 , Charanjit led the officer of the court to the police post. The detainee Ranjit Singh was found in the lock up. I quote from the search report which Jai Singh Patial sub mitted to the High Court:

"I asked the wireless operator, who did not disclose his name, to give me the roznamcha (a daily diary maintained at every police post). He took away the roznam cha and did not hand over the same to me...I threatened him that if he does not hand over the same to me then I will bring this fact to the notice of the Hon’ble Judge. Thereafter he put the roznamcha on the table. I made the necessary entries.... I tried to come out of the Sul- tanwind Police post but the operator and Shri Ajit Singh, constable No.1057, did not allow me to come out of the police post and asked me to stay there till the ar rival of Gurmeet Chand (the officer incharge of the post). I stayed there. The operator told me that the al leged detainee had been brought from the Vijay Nagar police post yesterday (March 9, 1988) and that it was their bad luck that the police post has been raided today. Gurmeet Singh came there after half an hour. On my asking, he informed me that the alleged detainee had been arrested by Shri Mohinder Singh, ASI, police station Sadar, in some robbery case and he had been sent here to the Sultanwind police post at about 430 p.m on March 10, 1988 for interrogation. He further told me that no entry regarding the arrival of the detainee has so far been made in the roznamcha_N

No comments are required to explain the sig-

39 nificance of the conflicting statements made by the wireless operator and the sub-inspector regarding the date and the time when Ranjit Singh was brought to Sultanwind police post. They give away the lies. Inspite of the outcome of the raid the police denied that Ranjit Singh had ever been in their illegal custody. No action has been taken against the officials who abducted Ranjit Singh, kept him in illegal detention for over a month, demanded ransom from his mother for his release and conspired and threatened to kill him extra-judicially.

EXAMPLE IV

The last example of illegal detention I shall cite at some length as it captures the inhuman essence of the manner in which the State has been responding to the challenge of separatism. It concerns Iqbal Singh, son ofx Kulwant Singh, resident of House No.8916, Jodhu Colony, Street No 4, Muktsar, a subdivisional town a Faridkot district.

The story of his woes begins from the first week of Juno 1984, when the Indian army launched the offensive against the Sikh militants in Punjab.

On 3rd of June, 1984, Iqbal Singh had gone to Patiala to consult a doctor, Sukhjinder Singh Dhaliwal, for treatment of the index finger of his left hand which had become gangrenous. The doctor advised an opera tion and asked him to come back to him after some days. Iqbal Singh wanted to go back to Muktsar the same evening as he had neither a friend nor a relative living in Patiala. However, he could not leave the city. A curfew had been imposed in the whole of Punjab for 36

40 H hours and the state transport had been suspended. An announcement made on public address system said that the army will be in charge of law and order in the state during the period of curfew. He had no other refuge but to go to Dukhniwaran Gurudwara, literally meaning Guru's refuge against distress. So he went there. The army, in its combing operations to flush out terrorists from their hideouts, attacked the Gurudwara. Many people were killed. Justice CS.Tiwana, a retired judge of Punjab High Court, told me that 275 persons were shot down in that Gurudwara alone, a matter which received little public notice vis-a-vis the bigger raid on the Golden Temple. Iqbal Singh was arrested on the t i charge of having resisted the attack by brick batting. He < was taken into custody and interrogated for fifteen days f in the course of which he suffered severe torture includ ing application of electric shocks. After the interroga tion he was detained under the National Security Act and transferred to Nabha Jail. He was also charged with offences under sections 307 (attempt to murder), 124 (sedition), 153 (waging war against the government) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 25/54/59 of the Arms Act (possession of illegal arms). From Nabha jail he was taken to Ladha Kothi, a special jail which had been created for interrogation of detainees, and was tortured in the course of his interrogation there, which lasted ten days. I shall digress a little to tell about Ladha Kothi.

Ladha Kothi was a palace constructed by Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala in the Raj days. According to the local legend, Bhupinder Singh built this palace for a damsel from the village Ladha of whom he was so enamoured that he proposed to her to join his harem.

41 She, however, insisted on having a palace to herself in her own village. It was built. Two days after she entered the palace, she died under mysterious circumstances. The story was related to me by Ram Swarup Sharma, a commandant of the Central Reserve Police Force, who lived in thee rooms which were once occupied by the Maharaja and his unfortunate consort when I went to see the palace on April 30,1988.

After Indian independence, the Kothi was con verted into a police interrogation centre, because of its isolated location where "cries in agony of prisoners un der torture could not be heard by anybody outside its premises", as Justice C.S.Tiwana, who conducted an in quiry into the allegation of torture of NSA detainees carried out in Ladha Kothi after the army action in Pun jab in June 1984, explains. Ladha Kothi remained a police interrogation centre until 30-5-1984 for on that date, six days before the army launched the attack on the Golden Temple, it was declared to be a jail by spe cial notification issued by the Punjab government. The Superintendent and the Deputy Superintendent of police who were in charge of the interrogation centre were made into Superintendent and Deputy Superinten dent of the jail. Justice GS.Tiwana explained why this was done in his report of the inquiry he conducted. I quote from his report

"....It was in contemplation of the Operation Blue Star that a declaration about the jail was made. A detainee can be kept in a jail and not in a police station or an interrogation centre". Explaining the point further Tiwana says: "The initial detention of several persons being illegal and none of them having been produced

DiaTtize^âniaîaita^bî^^ww^Dan^K^^^ri before a magistrate within twenty four hours of their ar rest, the government thought it better to pass orders of detention under the National Security Act... I am of the view that this kind of decision was taken by the govern ment that by interrogation of the detainees it should be found out whether any of them could be connected with any criminal offence. This necessitated the torture of detainees at the Ladha Kothi..."

According to the findings of Justice GS.Tiwana Commission of Inquiry, set up by the government of Punjab under the Commission of Inquiry Act on 20-11- 86, ninety two prisoners were taken out of Nabha jail alone for their interrogation at Ladha Kothi between the period of 30-8-1984 and 11-1-1985 and were sys tematically and brutally tortured there.

Iqbal Singh was one of those who had been sent to Ladha Kothi for his interrogation which lasted ten days. The facts about Iqbal Singh’s torture at Ladha Kothi were established by two separate inquiries. One was or dered by the Supreme Court of India in the writ petition (Criminal) No.378 of 1985, which a social worker from Delhi had filed, and was conducted by the District and Sessions Judge of Patiala. The second inquiry was con ducted by Justice C.S. Tiwana Commission.

The Tiwana Commission reecommended payment of Rs.15,000 to Iqbal in compensation of torture in flicted on him at Ladha Kothi. The commission also recommended action against 20 police officials desig nated as the jail officers of Ladha Kothi and responsible for infliction of torture on detainees.

43 j Digitized bv Paniab Digital Library I www.naniabdiaUih.nm After his interrogation at Ladha Kothi, Iqbal Singh was sent back to Nabha jail. Five months later his cus tody under NSA was revoked, not by the Government of Punjab, but by a Judicial Advisory Board Constituted under the law to review all cases of detention under the National Security Act, as being unjustified. He was then transferred to Patiala Jail to face trial in the case which baH been made out against him. In August 1985, a court in Patiala dismissed the case against him and he was released from the judicial custody on 8-8-1985.

After his release he went away to Nanded, in Maharashtra, to live with his brother who has a business thereJHe lived in Nanded until January 1988.

He returned to Muktsar in January 1988, on receiv ing a telegram from his mother which informed him that his father was seriously ill. In Muktsar he atteended on his ailing father, taking him to hospitals etc. In the meanwhile the Supreme Court of India directed the Punjab Government to state what steps it had taken to implement the recommendations of die Tiwana Com mission of Inquiry, in an order it passed on 28-3-1988, in the matter of the writ petition (criminal) No378, of 1985 which was still pending before the court. Respond ing to the order, the government of Punjab filed an af fidavit sworn in April 1988 which stated that in the case of Iqbal Singh the government has not yet paid the com pensation as recommended by the Commission since his whereabouts were not known to the government. Iqbal Singh had actually been taken into custody in the forenoon of April 12, 1988 from outside the house of Avtar Singh Sidhu, a leader of Youth Akah Dal, in Muktsar. Sidhu was not home when Iqbal went to see

Digitized by Paniab Digital Library I www.DaniabdiaUib.ora. him. Sidhu’s mother requested him to fetch some milk from the market. As he stepped out of the house, he noticed policemen in mufti hanging around on the road. Three Maruti cars without number plates, their glasses tinted, were parked on the road. Some of them came up to him and asked him for his name. He told them his name. Immediately they pushed him into one of the cars, blindfolded him and started driving away. However, he managed to scream out that the CIA (Central Investigating Agency) of Faridkot was abduct ing him. This information was conveyed by a passerby to the family members of Avtar Singh Sidhu who subse quently informed Iqbal Singh’s parents about it. On 15th of April 1988, Iqbal Singh’s father Kulvant Singh and Avtar Singh Sidhu met Govind Ram, Senior Super intendent of Police Faridkot, in an attempt to find out why Iqbal Singh was being taken into custody; why he was not being produced before a magistrate if the police had a case against him and where was he being detained. Govind Ram denied knowledge of the case and expressed inability to help them in any manner.

On, 22nd of April 1988, Iqbal Singh’s mother, Devinder Kaur, learnt from a minor official of the CIA staff of Faridkot police that her son was being held at the CIA’s main centre in Faridkot, near the bus stand. She also received a letter from her son, postmarked 23rd of April 1988. He had managed to have the letter smuggled out. I quote from the letter;

"....It must be in your knowledge that I am in the custody of the CIA staff, Faridkot since April 12....1 had gone to Billu’s (A.S.Sidhu) house... From the road out side his house I was abducted by the CIA stafL.My life is in danger. I might be killed in a faked encounter...."

I met Mrs.Devinder Kaur in Muktsar on 1-5-1988. Avtar Singh Sidhu and his mother had already informed me about the case. Mrs. Devinder Kaur told me about her vain attempts to persuade the police officials to release her son from their illegal custody and showed me the letter she had received from Iqbal Singh. No senior officials had deigned to grant her an interview. She then wrote a letter addressed to the Supreme Court of India asking the Court to protect Iqbal Singh’s life by issuing an order for his release from the illegal deten tion, and implored me to take all necessary steps to bring the matter before the Supreme Court. Following is a translation of her letter written in Gurmukhi, ad dressed to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court:

" Respected Sir,

I am an uneducated housewife who does not know English. In case I try to approach the court my normal course of proceedure, I fear my son wont remain alive to see the outcome. My son Iqbal Singh who has been il legally detained by the police could be killed in the meanwhile. I have tried to approach all those officers who are within my reach, with my prayers that they give my son justice. Not one of them was willing to even give me a fair hearing. Meanwhile, my son Iqbal Singh has been in police detention for over twenty days-from 12- 5-1988. Some Junior police officials in the course of my conversations with them have admitted that my son is in their custody. They, however, have expressed their in ability to help me in any way. I am now approaching the highest Court in India with the hope that it will protect

Digitized bv Paniab Digital Libraru-LmwLnanhhdiniHlinm------my son’s life and ensure that in case he has committed an offence for which he must be punished he be produced before a Court and tried in a legal manner. The Supreme Court has the power to pass such orders. If the Supreme Court will not hear this plea of a mother in distress then who else will listen to her? If my son is killed or tortured even after my writing to the highest seat of justice that will simultaneously indicate death of civilization in India...I state the facts of the case briefly..."

The letter goes on to give the facts of the case which I have narrated already.

With this letter I came to Delhi and talked to two lawyer friends, Nitya Ramakrishnan and Ashok Agrawal, about the possibility of moving a petition on behalf of Iqbal’s mother. They prepared a habeas cor pus petition and moved the Supreme Court. The peti tion (criminal) No.220 of 1988 was taken up by the court on 10-5-88. The famous civil liberties lawyer and retired judge of the Bombay High Court, Mr.Tarkunde, argued the case before a bench of the Supreme Court The court ordered the respondents, Home Secretary, Government of Punjab, Senior Superintendent of Police, Faridkot and the head of the department Ceentral Investigating Agency, Faridkot to ensure production of the detainee before the nearest magistrate and arrange for his interview with his family and his lawyers. The court allowed us to serve its orders on the respondents personally.

Ashok Agrawal and Nitya Ramakrishnan, as advo cates along with myself went to the Secretariat of the

H lW lfliU ttU IW Punjab Government in Chandigarh on 12-5-1988 at about 11 a.m. A.K.Dube, Special Secretary (Home) Government of Punjab received the order from us. We also met the Home Secretary, S.L.Kapoor. We informed them of our intention to reach Faridkot the same eve ning to effect service of the orders on Senior Superin tendent of Police, Faridkot and the Head of the Depart ment CIA, Faridkot. They assured us that a teleprinter message will reach the Senior Superintendent of Policee, Faridkot, in about ten minutes, apprising him of the orders of the Supreme Court to ensure produc tion of the detainee before the nearest magistrate and to arrange for his interview with us and his family mem bers.

We reached Faridkot around 7 p.m. the same day and went straight to the office of the SSP where we were informed that he was at his residence. We telephoned him at his residence and told him about our mission. He told us that a car for us to be taken to his residence was on its way. After about ten minutes, an open white Maruti Jeep without a number plate with three men in plain clothes drove in to the compound of the office of the SSP.

We met SSP Govind Ram around 7.45 p.m. and gave a copy of the order to him. He asked who Iqbal Singh was. Almost instantaneously, shuffling through the pages of the petition which we gave him, he an nounced that his police had never taken Iqbal into cus tody and had no due as to where he was. He called Joginder Singh, A Deputy Superintendent of Police who was the head of the C.IA staff in Faridkot, to his office and asked him to receive a copy of the order. He again

48 repeated in the presence of Joginder Singh that the al leged detainee was not in their custody. He promised, however, to start a search in all the jails, lock-ups and police stations under his jurisdiction and to give us the results by next morning. He then advised us not to leave Faridkot in *the night and made arrangements for our s$ay in tho Circuit House: Joginder Singh followed us on Our heals to the Circuit House and told us that he had already conducted a search in all the CIA centres in the district and the detainee was not to be found anywhere. He had indeed done a very fast job. Next morning Joginder Singh came to us around 830 ajn. and told us Again that the detainee was not to be found in any of the police stations within the district. He also told us that no record was maintained of persons arrested/detained for the purpose of interrogation irrespective of the duration of their detention.

We then went to Muktsar with the intention to in form Iqbal’s mother regarding the dismal outcome of our efforts. On reaching her house we discovered to our surprise that Iqbal Singh had been released by the SSP; Faridkot the previous afternoon few hours before we had met him and heard his denials of Iqbal Singh ever having been taken into custody. We were able to meet Iqbal Singh and his mother. His mother Mrs. Davinder Kaur told me that she had gone to Faridkot in the torenoon 0f 12-5-88 to meet the SSP and was im mediately granted an interview unlike on other occa sions. When she requested him to release her son, SSP Govind Ram asked her to wait outside his office. After some time Govind Ram called her in and told her that she could go to the CIA centre near the bus stand and take her son back home. He also told her that if she

DiqTtTze^^ania^iqita^bi^^^www^Daniabdiai^^m talked to outsiders about her son’s detention, the conse quences would be dire. She then went to the CIA Centre to pick up her son. Both of them came back to Muktsar in the evening.

Iqbal Singh had been severely tortured in the course of his detention. He showed me marks of injury on both his legs. I could see tawny patches of unpig- mented skin on both his tighs. I had a long interview with him on his abduction and subsequent experiences during his illegal custody. First he was hesitant to talk. When we told him that it was important for us to know the facts to support his case which was now before the Supreme Court, he opened up gradually.

Excerpts of my interview with him:

Q: Do you recognise the persons who picked up you?

A: I recognise one of them, DSP Joginder Singh. There were fifteen or twenty of them.

Q: How come you recognise Joginer Singh alone?

A: He was sitting next to me in the car. He was the one who led me into the lock up. I learnt his name in the course of my interrogation.

Q: Where were you taken to immediately after your abduction?

A: I was taken to CIA interrogation centre at Faridkot

Digitized by Panjab Digital LibraiyJjvw^ Q: You had been blindfolded and could not have seen where you were driving. How and when did you come to know that you were in the custody of the CIA staff, Faridkot?

A: At* the start of my interrogation onejjgcer asked me if I knew where Lwas. I said no. He then toldme that I was in the custody of the CJA staff, Faridkot which has compelled, he pointed out, many a dreaded terrorist to confess their crimes. He also asked me if I knew who I was talking to. I again said no. He then told me that his name was Shyam Sunder, adding that his name alone struck terror in the hearts of terrorists. (Shyam Sunder has since been killed by militants)

Q: Can you recapitulate the development of your in terrogation, keeping as close to the actual sequence as possible?

A: On reaching CIA staff centre at Faridkot, I was ushered into an office. My blindfold was removed. I was made to crouch on the floor while DSP Joginder Singh and Inspector Shyam Sunder sat on chairs. They started questioning me immediately. Who were the militants I maintained contacts with? Who took refuge at my house? Where did I hide weapons for them? What crimes have I committed in association with the militants? And so on. I told them the truth. I had no links with militants. No terrorist ever came to my house. I neither hid weapons nor have I ever committed a ter roristic offence, either individually or in association with others.I told them about my association with Avtar Singh Sidhu, a leader of the Youth Akali Dal and that we were friends. I also told them about my ordeals ever

Digitized bV Paniab Digital Library I www.oaniabdiaUib.org since I went to Patiala in June 1984....1 narrated the en tire story to my tormenters and requested them to make inquiries to satisfy themseelves whether I was speaking truth or not. But they proceeded to torture me. I was blindfolded once again. My clothes were tom out and I was stripped naked. My turban was used to tie my hands to the back. My right leg was squeezed into a hole in a heavy block of wood which was suspended from the ceil ing. I stood balancing my self on my left leg. After half an hour my leg was removed from the kathi, and then I was hung upside down from the ceiling and beaten. After some time I was taken down. The toes of my feet were tied together as also my hands to the back. Then I was made to lie down with my back to the floor. A heavy iron pipe was put on my legs. Four policemen got on top of it while two of them held the pipe tight across my legs from both the ends and rotated it up and down. My thigh muscles ruptured. Then they started pulling my legs apart until I felt them ripping out from the pel vis. Then they started kicking me in the region of my sensitive organs. I became unconscious. I woke up in a cell I don’t know after how long. > 4 Q: Do you recognise the persons who tortured you?

A: Yes, some of them I do. Inspector Shyam Sunder, Inspector Harban Singh Ustad and DSP Joginer Singh carried out the torture with many of their subordinates helping them.

Q: Did you come across SSP Govind Ram in the course of your interrogation?

A: SSP Govind Ram came to the CIA centre day after

52 www^paniabdiqiliba m i I had gone through the first round of torture. Waving his revolver at us - the detainees - he shouted that if we would not confess our crimes, he would personally shoot us all He directed my interrogation to recommence. He stood by and gave instructions. First he ordered chilli powder to be stuffed into my anus. Then he had petrol poured into it They started working on my legs all over again. I told the SSP that I was innocent and was being tortured unjustifiably. I fainted soon after.

Q: For how long were you tortured in this manner?

A: This pattern repeated itself everyday for one week. Very often the torturers would turn up late at nights in a drunken state and order us out of the lock up into the interrogation room. In one week I was reduced to the state of a corpse, instusitive to further infliction of pain. My legs were swollen thick. I was delirious and ran nigh temperature. One day I caught the words of an officer, If he does not gain consciousness, kill him and throw him into a canal." After some days Shyam Sunder came to me in the lock up. He admitted that my interrogation has been rather severe and unnecessary. "But you must try to recover soon. That will be in your interest. You may live if you can be on your legs". But my legs had been mutilated and I saw no chance of my ever being up on them.

One day Shyam Sunder took me out in a matador van. I thought he was going to kill me. But the van drove to a hospital near Brijendra College behind the bus stand. A Sikh doctor examined me.

Q: What was his name?

53 A: I don’t know.

Q: Do yoii remember the date?

A: It was 18th or 19th of April. The doctor gave me an injection. I thought he was giving me poison. I did not care. I was more ready to die then to live in that condi tion. The doctor gave me some medicine too. I was then driven back to the lock up. Treatment helped me. I began to recover fast. My co-detainees in the cell sup ported me to be able to walk.

Q: Why were you kept in custody for so long after Shyam Sunder admitted to you that your torture had been unnecessary?

A: I had been tortured too severely. They were not sure that I will overcome my injuries to live. If I had succurnoedan encounter would have been faked to ex plain away my death...

Q: You managed to smuggle out a letter from the cus tody. The letter, addressed to your mother, was postmarked 23rd of April. How did you manage to get this letter written and posted?

A: I cannot tell you about those who helped me in this. This would get them into trouble.

Q: Were you able to observe the conditions of your co-detainees?

A: There were eighteen detainees in the lock up when

Digitized by Panjab Digital Library_j www^paniabdiiliiilxorq I got there. They had all been picked up in the same manner as myself, and had suffered the same fate.

Q: Do you know their names?

A: I know five or six names. One was Kulwant Singh. He has been in illegal custody for more than two months. He was abducted from his village Moham in Ferozpur district.

Q: Is he still in the lock up?

A: Yes. He is still in the lock up. There was another man[ Balvinder Singh from Fatehgarh. He used to be a driver in Calcutta. He had gone to Talwandi Sabo on the occassion of Baisakhi from where he was picked up. One 14 year old boy who was known just by his nick namft, Kale, was also there. He too had been picked up from Talwandi Sabo. The boy comes from Goniyala vil lage near Bhatinda. He has suffered severe torture. Then there is a boy from Bagha Pur ana village near Moga. His name is Jarnail Singh. He has been in cus tody for the last eight months.He has neither been produced before a magistrate nor detained under any special law.

Q: How old is he?

A: Must be around 19.

Q: Who else?

A: Gurbaj Singh from Taran Taran and another boy Geja, also from Taran Taran. Both have been in custody

Digitized by Panjab Digital Library / www^paniabdiqUi%orq for the last two months. Geja’s associate Manjit Singh was taken out and killed in a faked encounter the day after I was brought to the lock up.

Q: How many more detainees did you see taken out of the lock up to be killed in staged encounters?

A: One or two detainees almost every day.

Q: How do you know that they were killed?

A: Those marked for elimination got segregated from the rest of us. They used to be taken out at nights never to return.

Q: Are you a witness to torture of other detainees in the custody of CIA Fandkot?

A: Yes. After about twenty five days of illegal arrest, when the injuries on my body had more or less healed, 1 was asked to tend buffaloes which belonged to Inspec tor Shyam Sunder. I was to wash and feed them. * Q: You mean, buffaloes were tended right inside the police station?

A: Yes, they were. One day when I was washing the buf faloes I witnessed two detainees being tortured. Hot iron rods were being incised into their calf-muscles. They were screaming themselves to death. I got scared and hid myself in the lock-up.

Q: Do you know their names?

56 Digitized by Panjab Digital Library / www^paniabdiqilib. A: No. I don’t know. I dared not inquire.

Q: At what time yesterday did you come to know that you were going to be released ?

A: I was in the lock up and had no idea that I might be released. At about 12 noon, two constables came to the lock up and informed me that my mother was waiting at the police station. I thought she must have come to re quest the officers for an interview with me. The con stables went away and came back after some time. They told me that I was about to be released. They asked me how much money I would give them if I was released. I thought they were joking. When they asked me if I would give them fifty rupees in case I was released, I readily agreed. Some time after I was taken out of the lock up and was actually allowed to leave the police sta tion along with my mother.

Q: What did the officer at the CIA Centre, Faridkot tell you before you were freed from their custody?

A: I was warned that if I talked to anyone about my ar rest or torture, or made complaints before a court of law, my entire family would be eliminated. SSP Govind Ram had given the same warning to my mother when she met him in the morning.

Iqbal Singh did neverthless talk. Threats and terror beyond the point of critical maximum fail to suspress human freedom. They begin to inspire a sense of fatal abandonment to "come what may".

DkritTzecUj^aniat^tiqita^t^ REFLECTIVE NOTE

The sovereignty of the Indian State in Punjab is not limited by the rule of law. In transgressing the basic principles of governance enunciated in the Constitution, it has ceased to represent the sovereignty derived from people’s consent, and has become a self-contradiction.

The methods to curb terrorist crimes we have ob served the state machineiy to follow violate all norma tive standards of punitive justice. By these standards punishment should follow logically from an open and fair determination of crime. This is presupposed in the concepts of justice and truth on which Law must rest to be at all definable.

The process of justice, by inherent necessity, must remain free from surreptitious and closed deci sions also for the reason that its aim is not merely to punish an offender but to rehabilitate the principle of fended even as the offended himself. The policy of eye for eye is not justice, but vengeance. The intention of punishment as part of the reparative process of justice must give full opportunity to the suspected offender not only to prove his innocence but also to repent in case his guilt has been established. Justice must afford him the opportunity to weld himself to the intent of the reparative process which is to restore him to that state of social acceptability which he has lost by violating its values.

This opportunity can be reliably afforded only within an institutional arrangement that has collective sanction. Justice is a collective endeavour and ran be

58 k DiqitizecUj^anial^kiita^brBi^^www^ ensured only by institutions which in addition to being % founded on the principle of fair pr ocess are amenable to H a fair understanding of the objective roots of conflicts % -arising in society. Such institutions must be led by- men whose moral character is as unquestionable as the k authority which they command to enforce their decrees is legitimate. In India, this vision of justice is vivid only by its absence.

| The sovereignty of the State relative to the aspira- U tions of its citizens is granted to it by the citizens them* i! selves through an implicit agreement that its instru* meats will represent and protect their interests on the basis of mutually agreed principles. The state will ensure conditions of freedom and justice and afford op- I portunities for the fulfilment of their legitimate aspira- . tions for material and spiritual dignity. The Indian State is not only no longer able to live up to its obligation , towards the majority of the people of Punjab, but is blatently unwilling to do so. Thus it has succeeded in disaffecting their sense of loyalty towards itself, and as they are conscious enough of their human worth, they 1 now seek for an alternative arrangement of social or* 1 ganization. !I Sovereignty of State is an important principle of civ ilization, rightly suggesting itself to be inviolable so long as it is exercised indivisibly with the common will of the people. But if it begins to operate on brutish force and manipulations springing from political con spiracies in high places, using common men as their fod der, transforming might into right and erasing al legiance by dread, the gesture of allegiance becomes an offence to civic conscience. Once this is realised, the

59 realization amounting to a transformation of man from a political object into a self-aware political subject, he becomes free from his obligation of submission to the Leviathan which is arrogating to itself an authority of conscience above that of individually reflective civic conscience.

Without the acquisition of this inner freedom, the struggle for outer freedom will continue to be embarrassed by an insecurity as to its own validity. For the Leviathan’s might of appearance suggests that by this might itself it commands a higher reason, and thereby easily deludes the uncourageous into the belief that it possesses a right of existence intagible even by the betrayal of its own purpose.

To the extent that the desire for freedom from the Leviathan becomes a common calling, it also becomes a common moral duty to oppose its atrocites by all means possible: But with the limitation that such opposition whether pea cable or paroxysmal, can claim legitimacy only if it is itself firmly grounded in the acceptance of those principles of justice, the abandonment of which has justified the breach of allegiance with the Leviathan. This is a point for the Sikh militants to consider.

Many innocent people have died in their hands. No cause on earth can be used to justify inten tional killings of innocent people. Those who are prepared to kill indiscriminately, to sacrifice the lives of others randomly for whatever cause and no matter what the grievance, are acting contrary to the spirit of justice and are, in fact, perpetrating crime. Those who lack the necessary disciplihe and self-control to refrain from committing such excesses, no matter how emotionally compelled they may feel in their ire, cannot claim the right

Digitized by Panjab Digital Library / www.panjabdigUib.org ___ to take up arms against the State, even if illegi timate, in the name of justice and right. There is little point in protesting against the excesses committed by the State, if the reaction consists merely in the augmentation of the quantum of such excesses. Such blind actions can and should arouse only repugance in morally sensitive people. They can fascinate only those who have criminal propensities. Such excesses more than providing the State with an excuse for enhancing its own atrocites, ultimately serve to corrupt the moral sensibilities of those very men who may have started with morally sound motives. The diffusion of a sense of guilt and cynicism that is sure to develop in thsoe who condone such excesses will ultimately destroy the relevance of their aspirations.

RAM NARAYAN KUMAR

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