A Depiction Of Atrocities Perpetrated By Your State

 

Dear President, below we are depicting unto you a picture not by our own hands, but the work of institutions, organisations and individuals who are worthy and certified in their fields of research. They are neither directly connected to our movement, nor are they emotionally connected to our cause; rather, they are compelled to write having seen the dark breaches of human rights in this state. Our desire is for you too to see this picture, so that you come to know how your army, security forces and police officers have instigated a wave of torture against Sikhs. We are not presenting all of this to win your sympathy, nor do we want you to feel regret having taken pity on us, to the contrary we are positioning you into this picture so that the world can decide upon the extent to which you have disregarded the UNO’s Declaration on Human Rights, the Geneva Convention, and many other international treaties:

 

  • In interrogating Sikhs, a round log of wood is placed on their legs, and after putting heavy weight on the log it is rotated on the legs.
  • Sprinkling chilli powder into the eyes and sexual organs of the Sikhs.
  • Sikhs are hung upside down from the ceilings until they lose consciousness.
  • Using a rod to batter the joints of Sikhs.
  • Administering electric shocks.
  • In interrogating Sikh women, hurling filthy abuse at them and causing humiliation by exposing and hurting their sexual organs.
  • Using violence to persecute sons and daughters in front of their parents, and parents in front of their sons and daughters.
  • Forcing sisters to beat their brothers and brothers to beat their sisters, stripping youthful women naked and then violently attacking them, beating and damaging their sexual organs, sexually assaulting them and terminating the pregnancies of expectant women.
  • Pulling the two legs apart thus tearing the flesh.
  • Enforcing victims of torture to go without water, to remain naked during the colder season, and to sit directly in the sun during the warmer seasons. They are prevented from sleep for many days and confined to solitary confinement.
  • Gathering village folk around to witness Sikhs being beaten and hurled filthy abuse at.
  • Preventing the dead bodies of Sikhs killed in fake-Police encounters from being handed over to their parents for cremation in order to conceal the obvious marks of persecution that would become apparent.
  • Procuring manipulated reports and false post-mortems from hospital doctors, and cremating bodies that have been falsely declared unclaimed.
  • Violently persecuting the parents of youths who are being sought for arrest.
  • Torturing the parents of all young people in an area where a suspected militant event has taken place.
  • Showing no concern for the age or health of a person, during torture, nor whether they live or die. If one survives such then they are fortunate, but if they die then their corpse is picked up and thrown out of the police station, riddled with a round of bullets, and the reported to the press as the fatal shooting of a dreaded terrorist in a Police encounter.
  • Tearing down the houses of Sikhs who have absconded from home, looting or stealing their belongings, destroying their crops, and preventing them from resowing their land by stealing their tube well motors.
  • Violently persecuting not only the parents of absconded youth, but distant relatives living far away.
  • In some places even the animals of absconded youths are met with the brunt of police force ire. Having forcibly brought all members of the household to the police station, local villagers are intimidated into refraining from feeding or tending to the animals as it would not be in their wellbeing. In this way, animals that have remained tied to posts die of starvation or thirst after a few days.
  • Beating members of the village where absconded youths reside.
  • Interrogation centers, which would be better called abattoirs, entailed kneeling logs over the bodies of Sikhs, and inflicting electrical shocks on genitalia so that younger Sikhs might not be able to have children; chilli-smeared sticks were inserted into their rectums, human faeces and urine were bound onto their mouths, legs were torn apart to tear their crotches, fingernails and toenails were torn off, salt was poured onto flesh wounds cut onto their legs and arms, their flesh was burnt using heated iron rods or heating electric irons, all such humiliation was the norm.
  • Registering false cases against individuals and only releasing them from charges once bribes of thousands of rupees have been paid.
  • The editor of any newspaper or publication reporting on the excesses of the Police force would have a case registered against them and an undeclared censorship would be imposed on their work.
  • Bans place on peaceful protests by human rights organisations. A ban on peaceful protests on 15th August and 30th September is an example of this.
  • Operating violent persecution in collusion with other powers, shrouding such oppression through collaborators in radio, television and the printed press, and then using these sources to propagate vicious and false propaganda against the Sikhs here and abroad.
  • Selecting and gathering hardened criminals who are then embedded into Sikh freedom-fighting groups in order to procure the arrest of revolutionaries, to kill them off, and to garner information of their connections. Such criminals are utilised to do such despicable deeds in order to blacken the name of the Sikhs amongst everyday people and tarnish the Sikh movement. These gangs have been termed ‘black cats’ amongst the people of Punjab. Under S.S.P. Izhar Alam’s tenure, these criminal gangs were named the ‘Alam Sena’. These gangs also operated under the names ‘Panthic Tiger Force’ and ‘Red Brigade’. Alam had used the name ‘Panthic Tiger Force’ specifically to target and take control of various Gurdwaras, to which end he needed a name that would erroneously present this group as belonging to the Panth. The existence of the ‘black cats’ has been acknowledged by both Alam and the Director General of Police. In an interview to India Today published on 15 September 1988, K.P.S. Gill had shamelessly stated: “the security forces in Punjab cannot do anything without the help of secret groups (Black Cats) and so the question of eliminating this tool is a non-starter.”
  • Thousands of innocent pilgrims, children, elderly and women were murdered at Sri Darbar Sahib Amritsar, ending their lives through starvation and thirst. The whole of Punjab was converted into a vast jail by imposing a curfew on the region. The internal army bulletin branded the Khalsa as terrorists. The army desecrated Gurdwaras across Punjab and committed such atrocities on the people that even the soul of Ahmed Shah Abdali might have felt shame.
  • The army invasion and assault on Sri Darbar Sahib Amritsar, Sri Akaal Takht Sahib and other Gurdwaras and Sikh institutions across Punjab left no treaty of the Geneva Convention free of violation, as with every part of the UNO Declaration of Human Rights and conventions on war. The Indian army conducted itself as if it were engaged in war with a foreign entity. We give just a few examples by way of asking that the Indian army be tried in the International Court of Justice so that the vessel of this self-claiming gate-keeper to high-morality and purest tradition of religion that is the Hindu-communal government should be publicly broken.
  • During the invasion of Sri Darbar Sahib Amritsar, visiting pilgrims and those members of the Sikh community who had congregated to commemorate the martyrdom date were not given protection in accordance with the Geneva Convention.
  • Journalists were prevented from entering the Sri Darbar Sahib Amritsar complex. Foreign journalists were expelled so that they could not bear witness to the atrocities committed by the Indian army.
  • In order to withhold any news of the deployment of troops in different areas across Punjab and of the invasion at Sri Darbar Sahib Amritsar from the public, newspapers were censored.
  • But because the truth can find its way into the public domain by word-of-mouth, all traffic to, from and within Punjab was banned.
  • A curfew was imposed across the whole of Punjab.
  • The invasion by the Indian army was not small, rather it was undertaken on a large-scale. The army, navy and air force were all utilised.
  • During the battle, the Indian army used heavy guns and tanks in order to destroy those major buildings in which people had taken refuge.
  • The firing from the army was so fierce that thousands of buildings that surround the Sri Darbar Sahib Amritsar were reduced to rubble. According to the government’s own estimates, eight hundred properties and shops were destroyed.
  • The people targeted by the army were not foreign troops, but were Granthis, devotees, pilgrims, women, the elderly and children, or comprised some freedom fighters whom the Indian government has deemed as terrorists.
  • No neutral observer was permitted to enter into the complex of Sri Darbar Sahib Amritsar in order to objectively assess the latest situation.
  • There were all kinds of help and facilities for the wounded army soldiers during the battle but the injured on the other side had no access to medical attention. The number who were taken away to be imprisoned was also small. It can be deduced from this that the Indian army determined it was more prudent to eliminate people on site than to incarcerate thousands of them or bear the burden of treating those injured.
  • There was no facility for, nor the need felt to perform religious rites for pilgrims and devotees who had been killed.
  • Dead bodies were not identified before being consigned to cremation fires, nor were any relatives able to attempt to identify their deceased relatives as the curfew across Punjab made it difficult to reach there.
  • Those bodies that were identified were not handed over to the next of kin in contravention of the traditions of the Geneva Convention. In this oppressive situation, only the dead or those who wished to be dead could be present at the last rites.
  • The Indian army showed no regard to the bodies of the deceased and forewent any need for respect or courtesy.
  • All the corpses were placed in a heap before being consigned to fire and it was not observed whether there were any Muslims amongst these murdered devotees for whom cremation is a gross violation and sin according to Islamic law. In this manner, none of the corpses were observed so that their religion could be determined, and their last rites given accordingly.
  • There was no consideration given to provide information about the dead to any international organisation or the Red Cross.
  • No commission was established to investigate the massive devastation caused by the army, when even the British authorities appointed the Hunter Commission to investigate massacre at Jallianwala Bagh. Both the Punjab and Union Government took every step to cover up the excesses and did not permit reports to be published.

     

    Bhai Sukhdev Singh Sukha

    Bhai Harjinder Singh Jinda

    Pune Jail, Maharashtra

    8 May 1990