On the 70th Hu­man Rights Day, march­ing through the streets of Gur­daspur, which has seen tremen­dous hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions in the past, Dal Khalsa ac­tivists and vic­tims’ fam­ily mem­bers ques­tioned In­di­a’s hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions and urged UN to push for ex­em­plary pun­ish­ment to po­lice  and se­cu­rity forces re­spon­si­ble for hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions in the Pun­jab.

On the 70th Hu­man Rights Day, Dal Khalsa ac­tivists and vic­tim fam­ily mem­bers marched through Gur­daspur cul­mi­nat­ing in a protest sit-in pub­lic meet which de­picted pho­tographs of those killed and dis­ap­peared, with lead­ers putting the In­dian gov­ern­ment in the dock by stat­ing that if New Delhi is not at fault, then why is it not al­low­ing Amnesty In­ter­na­tional, UNHRC and HRW to visit Pun­jab and ex­am­ine the fla­grant abuse of hu­man rights  in the state. 

The pro-free­dom Sikh group was hold­ing a protest sit-in to mark the 70th World Hu­man Rights Day.  Dur­ing the march vic­tims’ fam­i­lies of state-re­pres­sion were seen hold­ing pho­tographs of their kith and kin who were killed or who dis­ap­peared in­vol­un­tary dur­ing the years of in­sur­gency in Pun­jab. 

With tears swelling up their eyes, par­ents and rel­a­tives gazed to the skies, ask­ing, “Where are our loved ones and when will we get jus­tice?”  Hit­ting hard at the si­lence of the United Na­tions, Dal Khalsa sought to know, “The Butcher of Bosnia has been pun­ished. When will Butch­ers of Sikhs be in the dock?”.

Party head Ad­vo­cate Harpal Singh Cheema while ad­dress­ing the protest said to­day it sounds clichéd to talk of re­spect for hu­man rights in Pun­jab. It is dis­tress­ing that a string of in­ter­na­tional re­port of Rights groups and even In­dian non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions has not made any dent in the wil­fully neg­li­gent and pro-ac­tively tor­tu­ous ways of the Pun­jab po­lice.

He termed the Na­tional In­ves­ti­ga­tion Agency a new dragon cre­ated and de­signed by In­dian Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Modi to crush dis­sent­ing voices of mi­nor­ity com­mu­ni­ties. Re­fer­ring to ar­rests linked to po­lit­i­cal killings in the last two years, he said to end the cy­cle of vi­o­lence, In­dian state needs to find a po­lit­i­cal res­o­lu­tion to Pun­jab prob­lem.

“With tears swelling up their eyes, par­ents and rel­a­tives gazed to the skies, ask­ing, “Where are our loved ones and when will we get jus­tice?””

He slammed In­di­a’s stub­born at­ti­tude for cold-shoul­der­ing the out­cry of British par­lia­men­tar­i­ans in the case of con­tin­u­ing de­ten­tion of British na­tion­als Jag­tar Singh Jo­hal and Jimmy Singh. Trash­ing the po­lice claims that law was fol­lowed in re­cent ar­rests, Ad­vo­cate Jas­pal Singh Man­jpur said in the last few weeks, many ar­rests have been made on flimsy grounds, many peo­ple have been tor­tured in po­lice cus­tody and many were sub­jected to ha­rass­ment and hu­mil­i­a­tion.

Tak­ing a dig at the state gov­ern­ment, party gen­eral sec­re­tary Paramjit Singh said as if the im­punity en­joyed by the po­lice in Pun­jab un­der var­i­ous laws was not enough, the Amarinder gov­ern­ment has de­cided to bring PCOCA in the name of tack­ling the or­ga­nized crimes by gang­sters”. From the fry­ing pan into the fire.

The pres­i­dent of the stu­dent body Sikh Youth of Pun­jab Paramjit Singh Mand was forth­right and harsh in his crit­i­cism of the Modi gov­ern­ment by say­ing that “in Mod­i’s coun­try cows have rights not hu­man be­ings.”

“The Na­tional In­ves­ti­ga­tion Agency is a new dragon cre­ated and de­signed by In­dian Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Modi to crush dis­sent­ing voices of mi­nor­ity com­mu­ni­ties. To end the cy­cle of vi­o­lence, In­dian needs to find a po­lit­i­cal res­o­lu­tion in the spirit of con­flict res­o­lu­tion and not as a law and or­der prob­lem.”

Harpal Singh Cheema, chief, Dal Khalsa

Paramjit Singh Mand nar­rated the case of a young busi­ness­man In­der Mo­han Singh Up­pal, picked up by Lud­hi­ana po­lice on Sep­tem­ber 11, 1988 al­legedly for pro­vid­ing shel­ter to mil­i­tant leader, who died in po­lice cus­tody but never re­ceived any of­fi­cial ac­knowl­edge­ment or mon­e­tary re­lief from the gov­ern­ment.

Touch­ing an emo­tional chord, he told the au­di­ence about how the then Lud­hi­ana SSP, now DGP Pun­jab, Sumedh Singh Saini mocked and fooled the fam­ily re­gard­ing the busi­ness­man’s where­abouts. He quoted from the Hu­man Rights Asia Watch re­port which says that it was only af­ter in­ter­ven­tion of other po­lice higher ups that af­ter an 18 month or­deal, the fam­ily got to know from DIG Pa­tiala, R. S. Gill that “I am sorry, the boy is no more. These peo­ple have been mak­ing fools of you. He ex­pired on the very first day of his de­ten­tion”.

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By fail­ing to pros­e­cute the mem­bers of its se­cu­rity forces re­spon­si­ble for rights abuses, the In­dian state has ef­fec­tively con­doned these prac­tices and this was the main chal­lenge for ac­tivists and vic­tims.