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Arunleev Singh Walia,
General Secretary, Lawyers for Human Rights International8/15/02
Even after 50 years of India's
independence, the people of Punjab still suffer the wrath of
police brutality and the indifference of the state machinery
towards the economic and political development of the state. What
began as a struggle for self-determination and political freedom
took an ugly turn: it resulted in the killing of thousands of
people in armed violence that can justifiably be called the
genocide of Sikhs by the Indian Government. The government gave
the Punjab police excessive powers, so much so that they became a
law unto themselves. The continuing excesses of security forces
in Punjab have broken the backbone of the once peaceful and
prosperous state.
Many human rights lawyers and activists paid
with their lives for treading the path of political justice.
While the official figures put the total number of people killed
in Punjab during the period from 1984 to 1996 at 15,000,
according to various investigating agencies and human rights
groups more than 25,000 people have been killed by the Punjab
police. This includes persons "missing" from their
homes, killed in "encounters," cremated as
"unidentified" and "escaped from police
custody". This will haunt the mind of every Punjabi and be
remembered as the most sordid era in the history of the state.
The Congress Government under Chief Minister
Beant Singh created a situation where even subordinate police
officers became the judge, jury and executioner of innocent
people. Sikh boys were picked up from their houses or fields and
taken blindfolded to isolated places and told to run. A burst of
AK-47 rifle-fire ended their lives. Such was the terror that
nobody dared ask why not even a single member of the police force
was hit in crossfire. Many members of the police force in Punjab
got out-of-turn promotions, gallantry awards and monetary rewards
for killing "militants".
Sadly, the state machinery and the judiciary
remained mute spectators to these dastardly acts. Even the High
Court of Punjab and Haryana dismissed hundreds of Habeas Corpus
petitions filed by the parents of the "missing" youths
after receiving a police report that the detainee was killed in
an encounter or that the detainee was not in their custody. A
writ petition was filed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court Bar
Association, Chandigarh, seeking an independent inquiry into the
killing of a lawyer and human rights activist, Kulwant Singh of
Ropar, his wife and two-year-old child at the hands of the Punjab
police. It met the same fate, dismissed by a five-judge bench
with objectionable remarks against the lawyers for observing long
strikes to protest the killing of the lawyer. Later, the Supreme
Court passed unprecedented strictures on the highhandedness of
the High Court, and ordered a CBI [Central Bureau of
Investigation] inquiry into the killings. The CBI in its report
submitted to the Supreme Court found the Ropar police responsible
for the heinous crime of killing the lawyer and his family. This
resulted in the trial of one DSP [Deputy Superintendent of
Police] and four police inspectors of the Punjab police.
According to latest reports, more than 15 prosecution witnesses
have turned hostile due to police pressure.
The Punjab police's role in eliminating a
particular religious community-Sikhs in this case-in
their own homeland, is unheard of. The manner in which the Punjab
police acted beyond the pale of the law has put civilization to
shame. But the State Government was on a long vacation of sorts,
with its eyes and ears closed to the unending woes of the
victims. On the one hand, police excesses and administrative
failures broke the backbone of the state. On the other hand, the
poor condition of the farmers due to the discriminatory policies
of the State Government in ignoring their demands for adequate
water and cheap fertilizers added to the state's problems.
The assassination of the Chief Minister Beant
Singh on 31 October 1995 brought a halt to the corrupt and
anti-people rule in the state. The Shiromani Akali Dal-Bhartiya
Janata Party alliance that came into power promised to end the
'Police Raj,' and assured justice to the victims of
state repression. They also promised to release all the innocent
people arrested and lodged in different jails in Punjab under
TADA [Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention)
Act].* But to date, not a single police officer responsible
for human rights violations has been hauled up for his/her acts
of commission and omission.
There is no change in the situation. No doubt,
the number of casualties has come down. But the Punjab police
even today torture people in illegal custody, kills them in fake
encounters, maintain private goons, patronize criminals, grab
land belonging to the poor and the weak, and generally use muscle
to crush opposition.
What is more humiliating for the citizens of
the state is that the loud promises by the Chief Minister of the
state to uphold the rule of law and give opportunities to the
released militants to rehabilitate themselves have remained empty
and unfulfilled. This is not to say that crimes should not be
checked. But when the basic human right to life and liberty is
eroded on a mass scale by the state's forces, no words of
sympathy can heal. Even lawyers, human rights activists and media
people are being attacked and falsely implicated on the alleged
grounds that 'most human rights bodies are funded by
militant organizations abroad'. The Chief Minister of the
state declared on 2 October 1997 that the cases of all those
prisoners who were languishing in jails under TADA and other
offences would be considered, and that they would be released
within a short period. But the promise was forgotten, and many
people who had nothing to do with militant activities are still
languishing in jails.
It becomes the onerous duty of every human
rights activist to strive to establish the rule of law, and
prosecute policemen guilty of human rights violations in the
state. The state needs a new type of police force, one that will
protect the citizens against crime, and ensure that human rights
are not violated. The people of the state should take a fresh
decision and strive for a tomorrow without any police brutality
and an administration that is free of corruption.
This is edited text of an article originally
published in Combat Law: Human Rights Magazine, vol. 1,
no. 1, April-May 2002.
End Note
* The Terrorist and Disruptive Activities
(Prevention) Act, 1987, had a period of enforceability fixed as
five years. Since it expired in 1992, the Criminal Law Amendment
Bill, 1995, intended to replace TADA, was pending the
consideration of Parliament. Since the government felt that it
was not likely to be cleared, it promulgated the Prevention of
Terrorism Ordinance on 24 October 2001. During the winter session
of Parliament in December 2001 steps were taken for the
introduction of the Prevention of Terrorism Bill, 2001. However,
the Bill could not be introduced and considered since the
Parliament adjourned sine dine on 19 December 2001. Due to
the terrorist attack on Parliament House on 13 December 2001, the
President promulgated the Prevention of Terrorism (Second)
Ordinance 2001, which has been highly criticized by human rights
activists in India and abroad.
Posted on 2002-08-15
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