People's Commission inaugural hearing. Spokesman (Chandigarh)

Supreme Court of India attorney Indira Jaisingh made this presentation at the inaugural hearing of The People's Commission in Chandigarh (India). --Editor

I want to begin my presentation with the historical background to the problem of large scale violations of human rights by the State in Punjab. It is rooted in the social, economic and cultural factors relating to the people of Punjab. It is rooted in the Indian abdication of two main principles that guided its freedom struggle : special safeguards for minorities mid the federal principles and provincial autonomy. It is this abdication that explains the failure of democracy in India culminating in the declaration of internal Emergency in June 1975 by late Mrs. Indira Gandhi.

Already in 1971, almost all regional parties had realized that the centralized State of India was irreconcilable with true democracy and federalism. It was this realization which found reflection in the Anandpur Sahib resolution, adopted by the Akali Dal in 1973. The hopes and aspirations reflected in the resolution are also echoed in the political charters of regional parties from many other states. Mrs. Indira Gandhi's Emergency, imposed on the country in June 1975 under the pretext of internal disturbances, was aimed at suppressing these hopes and aspirations.

The entire opposition in the country suffered a collapse. But Punjab offered active and peaceful resistance under the leadership of the Akai Dal. Mrs. Gandhi was ultimately defeated at the elections held in 1977. A coalition of opposition parties, which called itself the Janata Party, came into power at the Center. This coalition included the Akali Dal.

People of the country had great hopes that democracy thus reinstated would work. The charisma of leaders like Jayaprakash Naravan, who led the campaign to restore democracy, also contributed to sustain the illusion that true democracy and federalism may yet be possible within the existing framework of the Indian constitution. However, the illusion did not last long.

The Janata Party was unfit to address the realities of mass unemployment, poverty, insecurity of the minorities and the problems arising front the tyrannical nature of the centralized policy. So the coalition of the Janata Party proved fragile. A spirit of opposition to the existing character of the Centre-State relations emerged all over the country, particularly in Punjab, Kashmir, Tamilnadu, Bengal and the northeastern states. These forces of opposition to the centralization of power on the one hand got consolidated in Punjab and the unaddressed socio-economic issues, which nurture “collective insecurities" on the other hand got consolidated in Punjab under the leadership of Sant Bhindranwale.

There was a genuine and widespread support all over the State for the demand for the implementation of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution. As the Central government failed to persuade Sant Bhindrawale to compromise on this demand it sent the army to physically liquidate him. On 5 June 1984, the government of Mrs. Gandhi launched an invasion and assault on the Golden Temple. Her choice of date was extraordinary,. It was the martyrdom day of the 5th Sikh Guru Arjun Dev, who had got the foundation stone of the Golden Temple laid 400 years ago by Mian Mir, a famous Sufi saint of his time. The choice of date was calculated to humiliate the Sikhs and to teach them a lesson for having dared to challenge the Indian State.

Mrs. Gandhi was assassinated on 31 October 1984. Killings on a massive scale. organized by the established political groups and silently condoned by the security forces followed. Mrs. Gandhi's son Rajiv Gandhi came to power on the slogan of "threat to India". A minority community constituting no more than two percent of the population of India had to deal with two major traumas : the decimation of the Akal Takht and the orchestration of genocide in the capital city of India. Their only crime was that they were Sikhs.

Every known fundamental right - the right to life, the right to freedom of religion and other political rights were violated by the Indian State. In the event, Operation Blue Star and the Delhi riots became the decisive points of reference in the consciousness of the people of Punjab.

What followed was the Sikh struggle for self-respect, for honor, for protection of their very existence and identity. In October 1987, the government that was installed in the State in 1985, as a result of a peace accord signed between Sant Longowal and late Rajiv Gandhi was dismissed for its alleged failure to safeguard Hindus. President's rule was imposed in the State.

Our investigations from 1998 onward disclose the emergence of a pattern of atrocities, extra-judicial killings, fake encounters, abductions, custodial torture and forced disappearances. The discovery of "unidentified" dead bodies cremated as unclaimed, made it clear that the Indian State through its police and the security forces had launched a calculated plan to eliminate sections of the community that sympathized with the Sikh struggle to recover their honor, their right to life and religion.

Early investigations and the first reports on State atrocities

Spokesman

From early 1988, when reports of police atrocities started appearing in the press, we began to travel in the State to investigate. During these travels we came in close contact with many who had suffered illegal detention, interrogation under torture and other atrocities. We also met relatives of those who had been eliminated in the police custody.

In two cases, we found that detainees had been done to death after prolonged interrogation under severe torture. One case from the Muktsar subdivision of Faridkot district involved Bhupinder Singh Sarang, a 15-year-old lad, a student of Class 10, and a local football star. He had been picked up from the house, taken to Sadar police station in Muktsar and was tortured under interrogation. We met eye-witnesses to his torture, and also a local youth leader who had seen Bhupinder Singh in the custody. But Bhupinder Singh was shown to have been killed in an armed encounter.

We also documented the case of a 16-year-old boy Gurbaksh Singh from Guru Harsahay sub-division of Ferozepur who had been produced before the police by a large group of prominent local citizens. The police then picked up Gurbaksh Singh's sister Balbir Kaur and her husband Mahal Singh. Gurbaksh Singh was later shown to have been killed in an armed encounter along with another Sikh youth Balwant Singh. Mahal Singh was arrested under TADA. Balbir Kaur was released after eight days of illegal detention in the course of which she suffered severe torture and sexual abuse. She took to bed and died three months later. We documented dozens of such cases which exposed a clear pattern of illegal abduction, custodial torture under interrogation culminating in executions, explained away as deaths in an armed encounter.

These cases in which there were witnesses to illegal and custodial torture before the police announced their deaths in encounters were rare in comparison to others in which persons were whisked away by unidentified men, appearing out of the blue, in vehicles without number plates, to be taken to undisclosed places for interrogation and to disappear for ever. We documented dozens of such cases.

Rarely in some instances the disappeared returned from the "dragon's belly". Some of them survived when the High Court of Punjab and Haryana or the Supreme Court of India issued directions for their production. lqbal Singh from Muktsar had already been arrested once before, following the crackdown on the Sikh religious shrines by the army in June 1984 from Gurdwara Dukhniwaran in Patiala. Arrested on charges of waging war against the government, Iqbal Singh was tortured under interrogation at Ladha Kothi, previously a pleasure palace of Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala, converted into a police interrogation center.

In August 1985, a court in Patiala acquitted him of all charges and he was released from prison. lqbal Singh was again picked up from the road outside his house in Muktsar by unidentified policemen in plain clothes in cars without number plates and with tinted glasses. Iqbal Singh's mother learnt from a minor police official about his illegal custody and torture at an interrogation centre in Faridkot. The same official later helped Iqbal Singh to smuggle out a letter in which he gave the location of his custody, and also expressed the fear that he might be killed. On the strength of this letter the Committee for Information and Initiative on Punjab moved the Supreme Court in May 1988 for a writ of habeas corpus. The court ordered the government of Punjab to ensure production of the detainee before the nearest magistrate and to arrange for his interview with his family and his lawyer. The court also allowed the Committee to serve its orders on the respondents personally.

With this order we and two lawyers from Delhi reached Faridkot's Senior Superintendent of Police on 12 May 1988. A teleprinter message about the court's order from the office of the Home Secretary had already reached him. He asked who Iqbal Singh was. Almost instantaneously, he announced that his police had never taken Iqbal Singh into custody. But he promised to search all the jails, lock-ups and police stations under his jurisdiction and to give us the results by next morning.

The next morning we were informed that the detainee was not to be found in any of the police stations in the district. Later in the day, we went to Muktsar to inform Iqbal Singh's mother on the dismal outcome of our efforts. On reaching her house we discovered to our Surprise that Iqbal Singh had been released by Faridkot's SSP the previous afternoon, few hours before we heard his denials on Iqbal Singh ever having been taken into custody. Iqbal Singh had been severely tortured in the course of his detention. We saw marks of injury on his body, and conducted a long interview with him in the course of which he revealed concrete information on several custodial executions to which he had become a witness.

I also got involved with the case of Avtar Singh Sidhu, a leader of the Youth Akali Dal from Muktsar, which brought us in first direct confrontation with KPS Gill, then Director General of Punjab Police. Sidhu had been helpful in gathering information on several cases of fake encounters in his region. On 30 September 1988, the police raided his house and a shop of pesticides owned by him in Muktsar. Sidhu was not present at either place. Many of his relatives including his younger brother were taken into custody to force him to surrender. On 14 October 1988, Sidhu surrendered himself to the custody of KPS Gill at the latter's residence in Chandigarh in the presence of Amrinder Singh, scion of the Patiala royalty.

When three weeks later Sidhu had still not been produced before a magistrate, three members of the Committee went to Faridkot and requested the Senior Superintendent of Police to grant an interview with the detainee. The SSP admitted to Sidhu's detention but expressed inability to grant our request since the DGP himself was handling the case. We then approached the DGP at Chandigarh. Gill took our application and promising to respond to the request for interview in due course, chided us for "disturbing him at odd hours on unimportant issues". We also gave the particulars of the case to the Secretary of the Punjab's Governor who assured us that he would place them before the Governor. Sidhu was released on 30 November 1988, and he gave us a long interview on his ordeals.

I also came across examples of the police terrorizing the whole village in the border districts known to be militants’ stronghold. Unable to distinguish silent sympathizers from active militants, the security forces were using collective humiliation to wean them away from their political sympathies. In reality, these methods were only adding to their alienation.

The testimonies of victims of police powers, which we recorded, not only established systematic violation of the domestic and international guarantees on inalienable human rights, they also repudiated the grand narrative of Indian officials and their sympathizers who portrayed the situation in Punjab as a war between the patriotic forces and anti-national mercenaries. The evidence collected by me discredited their claims that the government agencies represented the forces of social order, justice and legitimacy.

We failed to recognize anything noble in the evidence of police operation. Changes in the government took place but the basic pattern of atrocities did not change. In March 1998 the Indian Parliament passed 59th amendment to enable the Central government to extend the President's rule in the State beyond one year arid to suspend Article 2l. This was hardly necessary as other legislation existed. The Terrorist And Disruptive Activities (prevention) Act 1987 and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act 84, the National Security Act 1980 already existed to deal with the situation.

In the midst of all this, in 1992, Parliament announced elections to the State Assembly. All major Akali groups boycotted elections. Congress Party was elected with two-third majority. Voter turnout was about 28 per cent. We now enter new phase of State sponsored violence - the attack on human rights groups and their activist.

Ram Singh Billing, a reporter with the Punjabi daily newspaper Ajit and the Secretary of Punjab Human Rights Organization for his home district of Sangrur was picked up and unceremoniously executed soon after the Congress government took office. Next was the turn of Ajit Singh Bains, retired judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and Chairman of Punjab Human Rights Organization. His illegal arrest in April 1992 was not acknowledged for two days. Bains was manhandled, abused and publicly exhibited in handcuffs. Later, his arrest was formalized under TADA. The accusation was that Bains had taken part in a secret meeting of militant leaders held at Anandpur on March 18, where they hatched a conspiracy to carry out terrorist actions.

An inquiry later ordered by the High Court of Punjab established that Ajit Singh Bains' name did not figure in the original First Information Report about the "illegal meeting". However, the idea of arresting Bains was not to secure his conviction under the law, but to paralyze PHRO, and to demoralize other human rights groups with the example. Chief Minister Beant Singh told the State Legislative Assembly on April 6 that his government would not release Bains because his organization was engaged in defending terrorists.

A human rights lawyer Jagwinder Singh was picked up from his house in Kapurthala by a group of uniformed policemen on 25 September 1992 evening. Although the Chief Minister and the Chief Secretary promised to intervene, Jagwinder Singh never returned.

On 18 May 1992, Amritsar police picked up Param Satinderjit Singh, a Student of Guru Nanak Dev University, from the university campus. He was forced to identify suspected sympathizers of the cause within the university, who were also picked up. The police brought Param Satiderjit Singh to the university campus several times for this purpose. The university students held a demonstration to protest against the abduction, and his father went on a hunger strike. But Param Satinderjit Singh was not released. There was no trace of him thereafter.

Punjab government kept up the pressure on the PHRO by arresting Malwinder Singh Malli, General Secretary of the organization, in August 1992. Malli was also the editor of Paigam, a vernacular journal affiliated with a Marxist Leninist group, whose work in the field had led to several exhaustive reports on police atrocities. Elimination of Ram Singh Billing and Jagwinder Singh, and arrests of Ajit Singh Bains and Malwinder Singh Malli effectively paralyzed the regional human rights groups. Several prominent members of the PHRO either took temporary asylum in foreign countries or went into hibernation. Those who remained active were suppressed or silenced. Now the security forces could give undivided attention to eliminating the ring leaders of the militancy.

Evidence of mass cremations

Following the decimation of the guerilla group under Beant Singh’s government in Punjab cleansing the countryside of militant sympathizers apparently became the next main task of the security forces in the State. According to the police figures, published in 1993, security forces in Punjab killed 2,119 militants in the year 1992 under the euphemism of “encounters.” A large number of people in the border districts, picked up by the police for interrogation simply "disappeared".

Evidence that later surfaced shows that the "disappeared" were killed and their bodies quietly disposed of. First appeared reports that Punjab's irrigation canals had become the dumping ground for bodies of killed militants and their sympathizers. Reports carried by the Pioneer on 26 and 27 March 1992 said that the government of Rajasthan had formally complained to Punjab’s Chief Secretary that these canals were carrying large number of dead bodies into the State. The newspaper reports also said that many dead bodies, with hands and feet tied together were being fished out when water inflow in canals was stopped for repair work.

Jaswant Singh Khalra from Amritsar produced more incriminating evidence in the form of official records from the cremation grounds of Amritsar, Patti and Tarn Taran for the year 1992. These records showed that the police had burnt more than 1,400 bodies in these three cremation grounds alone by stating that they were unclaimed or unidentified. Jaswant Singh Khalra claimed, later corroborated by my own investigations, that the cremated were those who had earlier been picked up for interrogation.

Examination of cremation records from the office of the Registrar of Births and Deaths, Amritsar showed that three hundred bodies were cremated as unidentified/unclaimed in 1992 alone at the Durgiana Mandir cremation grounds even though in the case of one hundred and twelve, the names had actually been recorded. Forty one were shown as having died of bullet injuries. A firewood purchase register maintained at the Patti municipal cremation grounds showed that five hundred and thirty eight bodies were cremated as unidentified/unclaimed between 1991 arid 1994. After examining these records, we talked to attendants of the cremation grounds, the doctors who had conducted post mortems and also the relatives of victims who furnished the necessary evidence to establish linkages between the disappearances and illegal cremations.

Two attendants of the cremation ground at Patti told us that the police would often buy firewood for the cremation of one or two persons but would cremate several bodies together on a single pyre. The Chief Medical Officer of the Civil Hospital at Patti confessed that a post-mortem was completed in less than five minutes. The whole procedure had been simplified to the extent that it meant no more than filling a paper that announced the cause of death and the time of death, with the policemen providing the information.

He also gave us gruesome details of Sarabjit Singh's post mortem. On 30 October 1993, supposedly the dead body of Sarabjit Singh was brought to Patti hospital by the officers of Valtoha police station in Amritsar district for post mortem. The doctor who was to carry out the autopsy discovered that the man who had a bullet injury on his head was still breathing. Thereupon, Valtoha police officers insisted on taking him away. After some time they brought him back really dead and forced a different doctor to fill the autopsy report. Although a nurse in the hospital was able to identify Sarabjit Singh, and also knew where his parents lived, the police officers took away the body for a hasty cremation. Detailed narratives disclose a pattern of abductions, custodial torture, summary executions and illegal cremations as aspects of a strategy to weed out the roots of the Sikh militancy.

Khalra's disappearance and the Supreme Court's order for an inquiry

At this time, Jaswant Singh Khalra was the General Secretary of The Akali Dal's Human Rights Wing. In 1995 this organization filed a Writ Petition No. 990 in the Punjab and Haryana High Court to pray for an independent inquiry into the revelations on mass cremations. However the High Court dismissed the petition with the remarks that it was "too vague" and that the petitioner had no standing in the matter.

Following the dismissal of the petition by the High Court, the Committee for Information and Initiative on Punjab moved the Supreme Court under Article 32 of the Constitution to demand a CBI inquiry Into the matter. After detailing the facts, petition asked for an inquiry by an independent agency.

Persons had been cremated as unidentified, against the prescribed procedures in such cases, not because their identities were not known or knowable, or because there were none to claim them, but by virtue of a systematic policy of extra-judicial executions and secret disposal of dead bodies.

While the petition before the Supreme Court was still at the preliminary state of hearing, uniformed commandos of the Punjab Police abducted Jaswant Singh Khalra front outside his house on 6 September 1995. Without Khalra’s resourcefulness and extensive contacts in the district of Amritsar, it would not have been possible to so conclusively expose the methods the government had followed to crush the movement. Khalra had also been in the forefront of human rights campaign to punish the guilty who now wanted him out of tire way.

According to the affidavits sworn by Khalra's colleague and acquaintances including Sikh Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee's Chief Gurcharan Singh Tohra, former judge of thc Punjab and Havana High Court Ajit Singh Bains, and Jaspal Singh Dhillon who has now been implicated in the so-called jail-blast conspiracy case, he had been receiving threats from Ajit Singh Sandhu the Senior Superintendent of Police, Tarn Taran to stop investigation into the matter of illegal cremations.

Khalra’s wife petitioned the Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus. A bench of the Court presided over by Justice Kuldip Singh ordered the CBI to investigate not only the matter of Khalra's disappearance but also the larger issue of illegal cremations for which he had apparently sacrificed his life.

Report by the CBI, and the reference to the National Human Rights Commission

The CBI held police officials under Ajit Singh Sandhu, former Senior Superintendent of Tarn Taran police district, responsible for Khalra's abduction. The investigation into the allegations of secret cremations was completed in December 1996. Although the Court decided to keep the report secret, it released the figures of illegal cremations at Durgiana Mandir, Patti and Tarn Taran cremation grounds. Out of the total number of bodies the Punjab police cremated at these sites, tile CB1 had completed the identification of 585 bodies, only partially identifying 274, but failing in the identification of over 1,238.

In its order dated 11 December 1996, the Supreme Court observed, "Needless to say that the report discloses flagrant violation of human rights on a mass scale." The court went on to pass the order requesting the National Human Rights Commission to examine and to give its findings on all the issues which arise from the CBI's report and are raised by the parties. The court further clarified that as the Commission was going to examine the matter at the request of the Court, any compensation awarded by the Commission shall he binding and payable.

On 24 May 1997, the newspapers reported that Ajit Singh Sandhu, former Superintendent of Tarn Taran police district, committed suicide by throwing himself before a running train. Sandhu had been imprisoned for a few months on charges established by judicial inquiries, that involved illegal abductions, torture and elimination in custody, of people like Jaswant Singh Khalra and Kuljit Singh Dhat, a relative of Bhagat Singh, the famous revolutionary from the pre-independence era. The circumstances of his reported suicide were suspicious.

He had consumed alcohol, had driven to the railway track in his own car, and a short suicide note which lie left behind said "it is better to die than to live in this shame". Sandhu had been a trusted lieutenant of KPS Gill, former Director General of Punjab police who had led India's ruthless war against militancy in the State. Accused with all these extra judicial executions and hasty cremations, Sandhu would have had no choice but to establish the line of command under which he had carried out the executions in his district. There should have been an inquiry into his reported suicide.

But KPS Gill, now retired, seized tile opportunity to Iaunch his campaign against human rights activists. He demanded immunity for civil, and criminal proceedings for the police force in reaction to complaints of extra-judicial killings.

Another suicide that was ignored

9 July1997 issue of the Tribune a newspaper published from Chandigarh reported another suicide. A fifty-five year old former head of village council, Ajaib Singh Thodhian, committed suicide by taking poison within the precincts of Amritsar’s Golden Temple. A suicide note, which he wrote just before consuming poison, gave the reasons for his suicide. His son Kulwinder Singh had been picked up by the Amritsar police in November 1991. Ajaib Singh made all the efforts to trace him but in vain. He moved the High Court of Punjab and Haryana and then the Supreme Court, and personally met senior officials of the Punjab government including four Chief Ministers, Beant Singh, Harcharan Singh Brar, Mrs. Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, and Prakash Singh Badal. But no action was taken. Ajaib Singh Thodhian’s suicide note said that he was ending his life over his "disappointment in gaining justice."

The CCDP : The organization & the agenda

It was in this background that the proposal to form a Coordination Committee of various human rights groups involved in Punjab was first mooted. The objectives, as spelt out in position paper circulated for debate and feedback, were to

. develop a voluntary mechanism to collect and collate information on disappeared people front all over the state, and to ensure that the matter of police abductions leading to illegal cremations of dead bodies proceeds meaningfully and culminates in a just and satisfactory final order,

. to evolve a workable system of state accountability, and build up the pressure of public opinion to counter the bid for immunity,

. to lobby for India to change the domestic laws in conformity with the UN instruments on torture, enforced disappearances, accountability and compensation to victims of abuse of power and other related matters,

. to initiate a debate on vital issues of state power, its distribution, accountability and to work for a shared perspective on these matters with groups and movements all over India.

The Committee for Coordination on Disappearances in Punjab came formally into existence on 9 November 1997 when, in a meeting held in Chandigarh, the following human rights organizations and the political groups that felt sufficiently involved with the agenda decided to join hands.

The Committee for Information and Initiative on Punjab, Punjab Human Rights Organization, International Human Rights Organization, Movement Against Slate Repression, World Human Rights Protection Council, Human Rights and Democracy Forum, Lawyers for Human Rights, the Khalra Action Committee, Bhartiya Kisan Union, Akali Dal (Wadala), Akali Dal (Mann), Akali Dal (Panthic), Punjab Janata Morcha, Bahujan Samaj Party, International Democratic Party, Sikh Students Federation (Mehta, Chawla), the Babbar Akali Dal and tile Akal Federation. The World Sikh Council, which came into existence later, also joined the Coordination.

Those who joined tile Committee in their individual capacity are: Dr. (Mrs.) Sukjit Kaur Gill, Baba Sarabjot Singh Bedi, Sukhjindcr Singh, Mokham Singh, Gurtej Singh, Gurdarshan Singh Dhillion, Dalbir Singh, Col (retd.) Bhagat Singh, Jaspal Singh Sidhu, Maj. Gen. (retd.) Narinder Singh, Gurdip Sinp, editor Aj Di Awaz, Gurcharan Singh, editor Des Punjab and Joginder Singh, editor Spokesman.

The People's Commission on Human Rights violations in Punjab

The first convention of the Committee, dedicated to the memory of Jaswant Singh Khalra, was held on 10 December, 1991. The convention, presided over by former Judge of the Supreme Court Kuldip Singh, called on the Punjab government led by the Akali Dal to constitute a Truth Commission to investigate all reports of human rights violations in the State, as it had pledged in its election manifesto. The convention also decided to form a People's Commission to undertake these inquiries if the Punjab government reneged on its electoral pledge.

The State government responded by declaring that the past ought to he buried and forgotten, and that it had no intention to set up a Commission to conduct such inquiries. The Committee announced the formation of a panell of three judges to constitute the People's Commission, headed by D.S. Tewatia, former Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court, H. Suresh, a retired judge of the Bombay High Court and Justice Jaspal Singh are the other two judges on the panel. The following are the issues of inquiry and their terms of reference:

The Commission would examine the complaints of illegal abductions, custodial torture, enforced disappearances, summary executions and en masse illegal cremations, and to give its findings on

. whether from 1979 the agencies of the State carried out and tolerated directly or indirectly - any of the above mentioned atrocities and thereby committed violation of human rights as guaranteed under the constitution of India and various international covenants and declarations;

. whether the State agencies/individuals have prima facie committed an offence under the law of the land or international law;

. the Commission would further suggest the remedies available to the victims of the aforementioned atrocities including their entitlement to compensation front the State auld its agencies.

The security forces in Punjab were equipped with extraordinary powers to meet the law and order situation, in particular arising out of the alleged militant activities. Draconian powers were given to the investigating agencies to persecute the individuals and the groups suspected to be engaged in violence. The Commission would go into the causes and the reasons for the utter failure of the State and its agencies in the performance of their duties as required under the rule of law.

The constitutional guarantees, the ICCPR and India's obligations under other international instruments

It is absolutely outrageous that the government of India continues to stonewall the Supreme Court's order of a thorough probe even after the facts regarding illegal police abductions lending to extra-judicial executions and secret disposal of dead bodies have been so unambiguously established. The situation not only contradicts India's claims of adherence to human rights, it also leads to the surmise that the Union Government had itself sanctioned the genocide policy to eliminate the Sikh separatist threat.

It must be obvious that all lofty discussions on the basic features and basic framework of the Constitution, which even the Legislature cannot destroy would become meaningless if we do not start with the inflexible premise that the fundamental "right to life" of citizens, which the State must protect in all circumstances against all arbitrary violations, is the heart of India's constitution. The Supreme Court of India has, in a large number of cases, expounded on the permissible limits within which the Legislature may abridge, but not abrogate, the fundamental rights of citizens without damaging the basic structure of the Constitution.

We do not have to examine these decisions to conclude that the entire edifice of basic features of the Constitution would become dead letter if the State is allowed to abdicate its obligation to safeguard the right to life against arbitrary violation. Derogation from the fundamental right to life under Article 21 is impermissible in any situation by the effect of 44th amendment of the Constitution.

The working group on enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has been annually reporting to the Commission of Human Rights since 1981. Its report to the Commission's 1990 session which covers inquiries on 2,700 disappearances from 41 countries including India insists that impunity is the single most important factor that explains the unrelenting persistence of disappearances in many troubled regions of the world.

The 1977 Annual Report of the UN Working Group on Disappearances refers to the writ petition before the Supreme Court on secret cremations, and recommends that "all persons alleged to have perpetrated an act of enforced disappearances should be brought to justice in accordance with Article 14 of the UN declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, adopted by the General Assembly without a vote on 18 December 1992, and that “pursuant to Article 7 of the Declaration, no circumstances whatsoever may be invoked to justify enforced disappearances."

Further, the annual report of the Special Repporteur On Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary executions for 1997 concluded the following for India: "The perpetrators of extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions reportedly continue to enjoy virtual impunity". The Special Repporteur also referred to the letter from the government of India dated 22 November 1995 professing its Commitment to openness, transparency and full cooperation.

During the course of the coming weeks, we would be presenting detailed evidence, documentary as well as oral, to establish a pattern of mass violations of human rights by the State, evidence of forced disappearances correlated with the evidence of dead bodies alleged to be unidentified and unclaimed. On the basis of this evidence we would invite this Commission to give its findings on the atrocities committed and violation of human rights and fundamental rights under the Indian constitution and various international conventions and declarations.

We would urge the Commission to identify the State agencies and individuals who have prima facie committed offences under any international or national law. We request the Commission to suggest the remedies available to victims including compensation and rehabilitation. We request the Commission to give a declaratory finding in favor of victims, and recommend ways and means to bring the violators of human rights to justice.

Our investigations have also revealed that a large number of cases, which were brought by the victims against state agencies have been dismissed despite the production of satisfactory evidence. We urge the Commission to review these cases and suggest the creation of a Criminal Review Committee, which would take up the task of reopening these cases to seek justice for the victims, serving as a Truth Commission to verify the facts and to make full and public disclosure of the violation of human rights in Punjab.

Petitioners who appeared before the People's Commission. Some of the orphans of the victims of police atrocities, who have been obliged to live in ashrams, are also sitting among them. Spokesman (Chandigarh)

On 10 December 1997, the Committee for Coordination on Disappearances in Punjab (CCDP) called on the Punjab government to set up a Truth Commission to investigate all complaints of human rights violations, as promised by the Akali Dal's February 1997 Election Manifesto. The importance of initiating a public discourse on past abuses, accountability and the culture of impunity was evident to the victims and activists.

Besides the State's failure to acknowledge the scale of State violence in Punjab from 1984 to 1994, it had excluded an extraordinarily large number of people from the protections of law on the basis of their collective identity. An equally large number of people, in an antithetical stance in relation to that identity, participated in the perpetration of violence, directly, in auxiliary roles and as silent supporters.

After Chief Minister of Punjab Prakash Singh Badal failed to deliver on his election promise, on 26 April 1998, CCDP announced the formation of a three-judge panel to constitute a People's Commission on Human Rights Violations in Punjab. Justice D. S. Tewatia, a former Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court, chaired the panel, accompanied by Justice H. Suresh, a retired judge of the Maharashtra High Court, and Justice Jaspal Singh, a retired judge of the Delhi High Court. According to Article 1(1) of its Rules, the Commission aimed to investigate complaints of summary executions, mass illegal cremations, illegal abductions, custodial torture, and enforced disappearances in light of national and international law. Ultimately, it hoped to suggest avenues of redress for victims.

Amidst great popular support, the Commission held its first sitting from August 8 to 10, 1998 in Chandigarh. The first and only sitting of the Commission drew a standing-room-only crowd. People who, despite influence, knowledge, emotional strength, and a desire for justice had not approached the judicial system from fear of the police and the dismal record of the judiciary, now eagerly submitted petitions for examination by the panel.

In the face of this popular support, advocate Sudershan Goel filed a petition in the High Court on September 3, 1998, accusing the Commission of creating havoc, diminishing police morale, inciting enmity, setting up a parallel judicial system, and serving as a front for foreign interests.

Ironically, Goel invoked Article 226 of the Indian Constitution which gives the High Court wide powers to reach injustice wherever it is found, especially for the enforcement of fundamental rights. Before invoking Article 226 for any writ, however, it is necessary to show the real or imminent infringement of a vested right which Goel had not done. To prove the Commission's support from foreign interests, Goel attached letters from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Amnesty International, and a member of Britain's Parliament, among others, asking for the release of detained human rights activists.

Goel also named the Union of India, the State of Punjab, and the Daily Tribune as respondents, for failing to prevent the Commission from holding its hearings and "causing a feeling of loss of governance in the minds of the people." The State of Punjab replied that the Commission had not yet created a law and order problem. Thus, despite any desire the State may have had to stop the Commission, it could not proactively prevent the Commission from carrying out its activities.

Despite India's long tradition of People's Commissions and Citizens Tribunals that investigate and report on human rights violations, the High Court banned the People's Commission for creating a parallel judicial system. The Court dissected the language used by the Commission, resting on dictionary definitions to support its decision. "Commission" implied a legal body, and "summons" implied a legal action; thus, the privately organized People's Commission was attempting to usurp the powers of the judiciary. The Court ignored the Commission's Rules where the Commission affirmed that no group had to recognize the Commission and all participation was voluntary.

Neglecting to take note of the limitations imposed by the inefficiency, corruption, and inefficacy of the lower courts in handling police abuses, Justice Dutt of the High Court wrote in his opinion for the People's Commission case: "The complaints of heinous nature like murder, abduction, rape etc. can be taken cognizance of in the Criminal Courts in India without any limitation standing in the way." He did not, however, subject Goel to the same recommendation. Instead, Justice Dutt ruled in favor of Goel's petition before any law and order issue had occurred. ~ punjabjustice.org