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The screams of terror, the pervading stench of
burning flesh, distant lights as shops and homes
burn down, the triumphant shouts of looters.
People who lived through 1984 in Delhi are unlikely
to forget the horrors. After years of inquiries,
commissions, accusations and denials, Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh has, last month, expressed regret
for the horrifying anti-Sikh riots that followed
the assassination of Indira Gandhi, saying that,
"I have no hesitation in apologising not
only to the Sikh community but the whole Indian
nation because what took place in 1984 is the
negation of the concept of nationhood and what
is enshrined in our Constitution."
After 20 years, it is the first time that an Indian
Prime Minister has taken responsibility for these
appalling acts of state-sponsored violence. This
is all the more remarkable since the Congress
Party is deeply implicated in the violence. Congress
leaders, including Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar,
who were blamed for organising the pogrom have
resigned from their posts.
The Prime Minister says that his government will
try and take action against police officials named
in the Nanavati inquiry commission that was placed
before Parliament last month and led to his apology.
"The past is with us," the Prime Minister
said. "But as human beings, we have the willpower
and we have the ability to write a better future
for all of us."
These are hopeful and welcome words. But it is
important to remember that soothing words about
a better future will not be enough to make it
come true. There is also a need for justice, for
those responsible to be held accountable, for
an accurate account of events to be established,
and for compensation to be paid to victims or
their families. Only when those responsible for
wrongdoing have accepted responsibility or been
dealt with by the law, will those who have suffered
be able to find peace.
The 1984 riots have been discussed in movies,
in books and public debates. The statement of
the Prime Minister will lead to even more discussion.
But there are other screams of terror and, once
again, that pervading stench of burning flesh,
which are not being discussed. These come from
Punjab.
The Sikh separatist movement in Punjab claimed
thousands of lives.
Unspeakable horrors were perpetrated as bombs
went off in crowded bazaars and movie halls, killing
and maiming civilians. There were numerous political
assassinations. Hindu passengers were dragged
off public buses, lined up and shot down.
Instead of responding within the law, the Punjab
police were given free rein to contain the militancy.
Thousands of alleged militants, human rights activists,
and ordinary Sikhs in Punjab were summarily executed
by security forces, based on the merest suspicion
or, perhaps, not even that. Most were young men,
"disappeared," never to be seen again.
Their bodies were then cremated to destroy the
evidence.
These were extrajudicial executions, state-sponsored
terror. These acts, too, were the negation of
the concept of nationhood and what is enshrined
in India's Constitution.
The pain of family members in cases of "disappearance"
cannot be overstated. The United Nation's Office
of the High Commissioner For Human Rights has
described "enforced disappearance" as
a particularly grave crime because it puts a person
outside the protection of the law and has "a
doubly paralysing form of suffering: for the victims,
frequently tortured and in constant fear for their
lives, and for their family members, ignorant
of the fate of their loved ones, their emotions
alternating between hope and despair, wondering
and waiting, sometimes for years, for news that
may never come."
Paramjit Khalra is still waiting for news. Ten
years ago, in September 1995, her husband, Jaswant
Singh Khalra, was abducted. The government initially
claimed that men masquerading as police officials
had kidnapped him, but it was later established
that he was taken into custody by government agents.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has charged
six police officials for his illegal arrest.
He has not been heard from since. Investigations
indicate that he was murdered soon after his arrest.
In February, one witness testified that Khalra
was killed in custody and named former Punjab
director- general of police K.P.S. Gill among
those responsible.
Khalra's crime? He had undertaken an investigation
into the "disappearance" of other Sikhs.
His investigation led him to enquire into the
purchase of firewood by security forces. He found
that thousands of so-called unidentified or unclaimed
bodies were being secretly cremated by the police
with this firewood. Many of these bodies belonged
to those that had "disappeared."
In reality, these bodies were not unidentified:
their killers knew their identities. They were
not unclaimed: their families simply did not know
that they were dead. Many, sadly, are still hoping
for their return.
The killing of Jaswant Singh Khalra cannot, and
should not, be forgotten. For Jaswant Singh Khalra
took on an indispensable job in a
democracy: he dared to ask questions. In January
1995, he had filed a petition asking the courts
to investigate the mass cremations. Yet, because
he began to talk about the illegal cremations,
in a sad irony he, too, was abducted, in broad
daylight from outside his house, and then murdered,
just like those whose deaths he had been investigating.
No one has apologised for his death. No one has
even accepted responsibility. While six men have
been charged with kidnapping, no murder charges
have been filed. Khalra's family is still waiting
for justice.
And it is not just the Khalra family that is waiting.
According to a December 1996 report of the CBI,
at least 2,098 illegal cremations took place in
Amritsar district alone. No investigation took
place into the thousands of other bodies that
were secretly cremated in other parts of Punjab.
The government of Punjab and the government of
India have failed to identify and prosecute those
responsible for these murders.
Thus far, the Supreme Court and the National Human
Rights Commission
(NHRC) have failed the victims. At one point,
the Supreme Court referred the matter to the NHRC,
which initially attempted to investigate all cases
of "disappearances." But after the NHRC
was challenged by the government, it chose to
limit its investigations to only three cremation
grounds in Amritsar district. In November 2004,
the NHRC, finding the state of Punjab "accountable
and vicariously responsible for the infringement
of the indefeasible right to life,"
ordered compensation of Rs 250,000 for each of
more than 100 victims.
Other cases are still being evaluated.
But many relatives of those that were killed or
are still missing say they do not want compensation
if it is not matched by justice. After awarding
compensation, the NHRC has indicated that the
terms of future investigations will be limited
to the legality or illegality of cremations and
that it will not take up the central question
of responsibility for the unlawful arrests and
murders that preceded the cremations.
This is absurd. Unless a credible body like the
NHRC is allowed to freely conduct a full investigation,
it will be difficult to hold the government accountable
and force it into providing justice by prosecuting
those found responsible. The slow pace of the
NHRC's work also plays into the hands of the perpetrators
of these crimes, who hope that the "investigations"
will drag on until the families of victims are
exhausted and accept compensation as part of a
final settlement, or simply give in to hopelessness.
In evaluating what happened in Punjab, the NHRC
warned that the state should not "go overboard
in its war against terrorism by chilling civil
liberties." Yet, that is exactly what was
done in Punjab.
Officials take pride in how the "Punjab problem
was solved." But the methods included murder.
And these kinds of extrajudicial executions continue
in numerous other states in India where there
are internal conflicts.
Many in the security forces speak scathingly of
human rights defenders, calling them pestilence
that point fingers while the troops bravely face
bullets for their security. But it is people like
Jaswant Singh Khalra that show that the security
personnel, in the name of protecting citizens,
systematically commit crimes in places like Kashmir
and Manipur.
This is where the willpower of the Prime Minister
and the Indian government will be tested most
acutely. This government has addressed some human
rights problems, such as repealing the Prevention
of Terrorism Act or promising recently during
talks with Kashmiri leaders that human rights
abuses will not be allowed, but it still hasn't
mustered the political will to address the ubiquitous
impunity of the Indian security forces. India
is indeed the world's biggest democracy, but it
still hasn't established the principle that no
one is above the law, even if they are troops
who believe they are acting in the national interest.
There can be no better future unless people who
are guilty of human rights violations are brought
to justice. For Jaswant Singh Khalra, justice
has already been delayed for a decade. The Prime
Minister should take the first step. Make this
case an example of a new commitment by the state
to root out the killers in its midst, even if,
as many claim, it upsets troop morale or, in the
case of the 1984 riots, leads to important figures
within Congress. Khalra wasn't just kidnapped,
he was murdered. It is time to order an immediate
and independent criminal investigation into and
prosecution of his killers.
And on the Khalra case and all others, the NHRC
should be encouraged and empowered to do its job,
not pressured to keep silent. Every case of "disappearance"
and every unexplained cremation in Punjab should
be investigated. Only then will survivors like
Paramjit Khalra, who has tirelessly campaigned
for justice, be able to rest.
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