KPS Gill’s death has evoked re­ac­tion from the en­tire Sikh world. The World Sikh Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Canada, con­tin­u­ing its sus­tained cam­paign for re­spect for hu­man rights in the Pun­jab seeks a full scale in­quiry into vi­o­la­tions dur­ing the 80s and 90s of the last cen­tury.

Ottawa. Con­tin­u­ing its sus­tained cam­paign for seek­ing jus­tice for vic­tims of hu­man rights vi­o­la­tion of the Sikhs in Pun­jab and around the world, The World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Canada, formed af­ter the storm­ing of Dar­bar Sahib -the Golden Tem­ple in June 1984, has called for a full com­mis­sion of in­quiry into hu­man rights abuses that took place in Pun­jab in the 80s and 90s of the last cen­tury.

In a world­wide press re­lease, com­ment­ing on the death of KPS Gill, WSO has said that, “The death to­day, of KPS Gill, for­mer Di­rec­tor Gen­eral of the Pun­jab Po­lice dur­ing the 80s and 90s, marks the loss of an op­por­tu­nity to pur­sue jus­tice and ac­count­abil­ity for the thou­sands of vic­tims of po­lice and state atroc­i­ties in Pun­jab. Gill lead a cam­paign of state-vi­o­lence de­signed to crush mil­i­tancy and dis­sent in Pun­jab in the early-1990s and was col­lo­qui­ally known by many as the “Butcher of the Pun­jab”.  Un­der his com­mand, the Pun­jab Po­lice and In­dian se­cu­rity forces en­gaged in wide­spread abuses and op­er­ated with im­punity.  He was im­pli­cated in the ex­tra­ju­di­cial mur­ders of sev­eral promi­nent ac­tivists, in­clud­ing hu­man rights ad­vo­cate Jaswant Singh Khalra.”

In 1995, WSO on two oc­ca­sions hosted hu­man rights ac­tivist Jaswant Singh Khalra in Canada months be­fore his in­vol­un­tary dis­ap­pear­ance and killing at the hands of KPS Gill-led po­lice teams. Dur­ing his meet­ings with Sikhs and Cana­dian par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, Jaswant Singh Khalra had pointed out first-hand, how he col­lected de­tails of cases of Sikhs killed as “Un­known” in Am­rit­sar and around.

““I felt be­trayed by then PM Chan­dra Shekhar af­ter 21 Khal­is­tani mil­i­tants I arranged to sur­ren­der were killed.” – Amarinder Singh, Chief Min­is­ter Pun­jab”

Tak­ing se­ri­ously every word that em­anates from the mouths of the pow­ers that be in Pun­jab and In­dia, the WSO state­ment al­luded to the re­cent rev­e­la­tion of Pun­jab Chief Min­is­ter Amarinder Singh who tweeted:  “I felt be­trayed by then PM Chan­dra Shekhar af­ter 21 Khal­is­tani mil­i­tants I arranged to sur­ren­der were killed.”

The state­ment said that the Chief Min­is­ter is not the only one. “Sev­eral promi­nent Pun­jab Po­lice of­fi­cers in­clud­ing In­spec­tor Gurmeet Singh “Pinky”, for­mer DGP S.S. Virk and sub-in­spec­tor (SI) Sur­jit Singh have come for­ward with shock­ing ad­mis­sions of tor­ture, fake en­coun­ters and il­le­gal cre­ma­tions of bod­ies, nam­ing sev­eral cur­rent se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials.  None of these al­le­ga­tions have been in­ves­ti­gated.”

““Heal­ing is im­pos­si­ble with­out ac­count­abil­ity and jus­tice.” – Mukhbir Singh, Pres­i­dent, WSO”

In­di­a’s Na­tional Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion in 2012 or­dered Rs.27.94 crore as mon­e­tary re­lief to fam­i­lies of 1,513 in­no­cent peo­ple, ex­tra-ju­di­cially killed while in Pun­jab po­lice cus­tody and il­le­gally cre­mated.  No fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion has taken place.

WSO Pres­i­dent Mukhbir Singh said, “hu­man rights abuses in Pun­jab dur­ing the 80s and 90s have not been ad­e­quately in­ves­ti­gated or ad­dressed.  KPS Gill was ac­cused of per­pe­trat­ing shock­ing hu­man rights abuses, in­clud­ing the mur­der of Jaswant Singh Khalra.  His death means that we will likely never know the full ex­tent of his in­volve­ment in these crimes. We be­lieve it is es­sen­tial that a com­mis­sion of in­quiry be es­tab­lished to in­ves­ti­gate the abuses that oc­curred through­out Pun­jab. Po­lice and ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fi­cials, guilty of such se­ri­ous crimes against hu­man­ity must be held ac­count­able.  Heal­ing is im­pos­si­ble with­out ac­count­abil­ity and jus­tice.