Human Rights



Silencing Of Human Rights Groups

 

On 24 May 1997, newspapers reported that Ajit Singh Sandhu, former Superintendent of Tarn Taran police district, committed suicide by throwing himself in front of a train. Sandhu had been imprisoned for a few months on charges including those centering on the disappearance of Jaswant Singh Khalra. It was reported that he had consumed alcohol, had driven to the railway track in his own car, and had left a suicide note which said "it is better to die than to live in this shame." Sandhu had been a trusted ally of K.P.S. Gill, former Director General of Police for Punjab, who had led the counterinsurgency against Sikh militants in the state and stood personally accused by Human Rights Watch and other groups of shepherding the massive human rights violations that occurred under his watch. In the face of rising claims of extrajudicial executions and hasty cremations, the suicide of Sandhu, a figure who would have been implicated in many of them, should clearly have been investigated further. But K.P.S. Gill, now retired, seized the opportunity to rail against what he called "an utterly compromised human rights lobby." Newspapers across the country carried the full text of his statement that inveighed the nation for ingratitude toward its "heroes" like Ajit Singh Sandhu who had saved India from the brink of disintegration. It further castigated people for permitting human rights activists "who will work with any cause that serves their personal ends, whether criminal, political or secessionist" to thrive (sic) on Indian soil The statement chided the State for not "educating itself on how to tackle individuals and groups trying to destroy it," and went on to tell the parliament how to bring about the necessary legal amendments which would protect courageous police officers of Punjab from the kind of humiliation that apparently drove Sandhu to suicide. It concluded that the bud of Khalistan had been nipped through the achievements of officers like Sandhu, which prevented the possible balkanization of India.

The charge of Sandhu's involvement in the abduction and death of Jaswant Singh Khalra - who was not a secessionist but a human rights investigator - disappeared in the sweep of celebratory coverage of the "war without quarter." K.P.S. Gill subsequently requested the Prime Minister for legislation that would define "appropriate criteria to judge the actions of those who fought this war on behalf of the Indian State," identifying human rights groups with separatists by adding that "for those who were comprehensively defeated in the battle for Khalistan, public interest litigation has become the most convenient strategy for vendetta." But in 1998, a police officer under Sandhu's command who came forward as an eyewitness to Khalra's seizure, torture, and murder gave lie to the picture of Sandhu and the police of Tarn Taran district as valiant defenders of the Indian nation. Indeed, this eyewitness alleged that the conspiracy to eliminate Khalra was sanctioned at the highest levels.

Heightening awareness of the push for accountability has led to a rise in calls for the necessity of impunity for rights abusers. In addition, there have been deliberate attempts to thwart the efforts of human rights workers. Since India has never allowed Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch or other internationally respected organizations to visit Punjab, grassroots workers have provided the bulk of the information that has come out. But these workers are then particularly vulnerable to harassments and threats in India. Many of the activists now working with the Committee for Coordination on Disappearances in Punjab have been themselves arrested, tortured, and jailed (Kumar among them). Since the work of documenting disappearances has begun in earnest, an elaborate hoax was orchestrated to frame several activists in a purported plot to break Sikh militants out of Burail jail. This has the effect not only of tying up the time and resources of the remaining activists - who now have to mobilize to get their colleagues released - but of identifying human rights activism with sympathy for militancy in the public mind.

On July 18, 1998, three members of the Committee for Coordination on Disappearances in Punjab came out of India to speak about the efforts of the Committee at Columbia University in New York. These were Ram Narayan Kumar (current author), Amar Singh Chahal (Lawyers for Human Rights) and Inderjit Singh Jaijee (Movement Against State Repression). Also speaking at the human rights symposium were Cynthia Mahmood (current author), Mary Pike (Center for Constitutional Law), and Ami Laws (Physicians for Human Rights) from the United States. Just days after the seminar, word was received that Jaspal Singh Dhillon, another member of the Committee for Coordination, head of the Human Rights and Democracy Forum, and close associate of Jaswant Singh Khalra's, had been arrested in India once again in connection with the jailbreak conspiracy. A string of volunteers for the Committee for Coordination were picked up for questioning at the same time.

We fear for the well-being and indeed for the lives of our colleagues who continue to work to document the egregious abuse of state power exemplified in the phenomenon of "disappearance."

   
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