reducedtoashes

IV
Reduced to Ashes
report of the Committee for Coordination on Disappearances in Punjab (CCDP),
which focuses on human rights abuses that occurred in the period from 1984 to
1994. This report, as Peter Rosenblum suggests in the preface, is the "ground work
for an honest retelling of a tragic part of history". It is an attempt to tell the truth
about political killings, enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrests and prolonged
unlawful detentions that became the stock-in-trade of the anti-insurgency
operations in Punjab. It reveals the complex denial by the state agencies and their
defenders and the institutional participation in the scheme of impunity. It does not
take sides on the political guilt or innocence of the victims; eschews rhetoric and,
significantly, stays clear from the quicksands of political solutions. The report, however,
lays bare the parallelism of the rhetoric of rights and the reality of extreme
human rights abuses that bedevils the Indian democratic paradigm.
It may be asked why another report on Punjab? It could be justifiably argued
that already much has been written about the abuse of human rights in Punjab and
that by raking up all this once again we might jeopardise the process of "healing".
But as we know, the silence of graveyard that obtains in Punjab today is not a
reflection of peace. The enquiry being conducted by the National Human Rights
Commission (NHRC), under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, in the disappearances
and illegal cremations in Punjab, shows the deep social divisions that is
endangering the prospects of justice and peace in the state. Every attempt to bring
justice to the victims, reform the institutions in order to achieve transparency, structural
equality and democracy has been frustrated by powerful persons linked with
the pervious administration that perpetrated the horrible abuses in the mistaken
belief of defending the integrity of the state. Their demand for amnesty has found
support in the highest quarters of the Indian government. On 19 August 2001, the
union home minister spoke at a function organized by the Hind Samachar group of
newspapers at Jalandhar to announce that the government was "contemplating steps
to provide legal protection and relief to the personnel of the security forces facing
prosecution for alleged excesses during anti-insurgency operations" in Punjab,
Kashmir and the north-eastern provinces of India. According to a report in The
Asian Age, the Union Home Minister indicated "some form of general amnesty"
and suggested that "forces deployed to combat terrorism anywhere in the country
must be given special rights and powers". K. P. S. Gill, former director-general of
Punjab police welcomed the move and, according to a story in The Indian Express,
repeated his charge that the cases against police officers "were based on concocted
evidence by the investigating agencies acting under undue and extra-constitutional
pressures". The Home Minister's announcement was hailed also by the Communist
Party of India (CPI) and the Congress party, which promised to "withdraw all the
cases against the innocent cops" if voted to power. The subsequent state assembly
elections in Punjab returned the Congress to power and its government in the state
is led by Amrinder Singh, the scion of Patiala royalty who converted the issue of
amnesty to police officials into an election pledge. It is in this context and the declared
positions on impunity by both the state and the Union government that the
NHRC will have to weigh the evidence of human rights crimes offered in this volume
of the report before proceedings in the matter of abductions leading to illegal
cremations by the Punjab police in Amritsar district
The decade of political violence has left behind a large number of victims who
introduction.p65 4
4/27/03, 10:05 PM