The Committee for Coordination on Disappearances in Punjab
742 Sector 8-B, Chandigarh
Tel/Fax: 0172 779681
E-mail: disapear@nda.vsnl.net.in
ramnarayankumar@hotmail.com

Embargoed for release on 10 December 2000

Who we are and why we are here:
The Committee for Coordination on Disappearances in Punjab was organized in November 1997 for the purpose of investigating allegations of abuses of the law committed by various agents of the Indian government against its own citizens in Punjab, and to provide a voice and avenue for legal redress to those families who have had their relatives abducted and disappeared by the State forces. More specifically, the Committee aimed to mobilize voluntary efforts in documenting human rights abuses to bring the matter of enforced disappearances leading to secret cremations, which the Supreme Court referred to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in December 1996, to a just and satisfactory conclusion. We are here today to explain how these efforts have floundered before the imperturbability of the powers, about the outrageous proposals of the government, endorsed by the NHRC, to buy the silence of victim families and about their decision to test the outer limits of this country's system of justice by moving the Supreme Court once again. The following is a short legal background of the matter.

The reference to the National Human Rights Commission:
On 10 December 1996, the Supreme Court received the Central Bureau of Investigation's report on enforced disappearances and secret cremations carried out by the security forces in Punjab from 1984 to 1994. The CBI's report was based on the examination of three crematoria in Amritsar district and disclosed 2097 illegal cremations - 585 fully identified, 274 partially identified, and 1238 unidentified. The Court instructed the National Human Rights Commission to examine and determine all the issues, including compensation, which arise from this disclosure of "flagrant violations of human rights on a mass scale". The CBI was to continue its investigations into culpability of officials responsible for these human rights violations and submit a quarterly status report to the court on its progress.

Background of the case before the Supreme Court:
On 16 January 1995, Jaswant Singh Khalra, a human rights worker from Amritsar, had issued a Press Note to allege that the security agencies in Punjab had been secretly cremating thousands of dead bodies by labelling them as unidentified. The Press Note suggested that the cremated people had earlier been picked up for interrogation on the suspicion of their separatist sympathies. In evidence, Khalra produced information from the office of the Registrar of Births and Deaths and the firewood purchase registers maintained at Amritsar's cremation grounds. Evidence of secret cremations in Amritsar district, Khalra said, illustrated the modus operandi of the Punjab police throughout the State. After the High Court of Punjab refused to institute a comprehensive inquiry on Khalra's petition, we moved the Supreme Court to demand an impartial and independent investigation into the systematic and sustained policy of extrajudicial executions and disposal of dead bodies. The Supreme Court instituted two CBI inquiries after Khalra himself was abducted by the armed commandos of Punjab police on 6 September 1995. The first inquiry aimed to determine what happened to Khalra. The second inquiry intended to establish the substance of Khalra's allegations about "a gory-tale of human rights violations." In July 1996, the report of the first inquiry held nine officers of the Punjab police responsible for Khalra's abduction. On the basis of this determination, the Court ordered the institution of criminal proceedings and grant of one million rupees in compensation to Khalra's wife. On the report of the second inquiry, which substantiated the allegations made by Khalra, the Court ordered the National Human Rights Commission to examine and determine all the pertinent issues.

Order on the scope of inquiry: Deconstruction of the mandate:
Four years after the National Human Rights Commission received the mandate, the matter, as we must report in great anguish, is on the brink of a dishonourable conclusion. The proceedings have been characterized by an atmosphere of encouragement of impunity and brazen collaboration with the very same forces of injustice and violence that gave rise to the original need to move the Supreme Court. On 13 January 1999, after two years of wrangling on the preliminary issues, the Commission capitulated before the forces of impunity and decided to limit the inquiry to only 2097 cases of cremations in Amritsar district mentioned in the CBI's report. With the crucial emphasis on cremations, the Commission deliberately shifted the inquiry from its basis in the fundamental human rights law to limited technical issues. By limiting the inquiry to the incidents of cremations in Amritsar listed in the CBI's report, the Commission was invidiously discriminating against identically situated victims of atrocities in other parts of Punjab. It rejected the view that the inquiry had to cover all incidents of police abduction, enforced disappearance, custodial execution and illegal disposal of dead bodies by cremation and other ways throughout the State of Punjab. We pointed out that illegal cremations, burials, entombment or quartering and drowning of bodies in canals, as issues, must remain secondary to the principal concern for the fundamental rights whose violations had preceded and culminated in one or the other form of disposal of dead bodies. It has been our position that technical, territorial and numerical restrictions on the inquiry degrade the universality of the right to life under Article 21. They also vitiate the principle of equality before the law under Article 14 of the Constitution. Such restrictions further make it impossible for the Commission to determine the identities of 1238 bodies burnt in Amritsar district, which the CBI in its report has listed as unidentified. The record of the Durgiyana Mandir cremations, furnished by Khalra, shows that bodies were brought there for cremation from other districts in Punjab and even outside the State. But the Commission remained unmoved and went on to invite claims from legal heirs of people who had been cremated in Amritsar district alone. The claim forms, to be returned to the Commission before 10 March 1999, did not elicit the experiences of victims so necessary to develop criteria for monetary compensation and other restorative and rehabilitative measures. It asked for details of occupation, income, and property owned by claimants and by persons whose bodies had been cremated. But the form had no columns for the claimants to inform the Commission about destruction, theft and confiscation of their immovable property, cattle, crops and chattel. Likewise, the claim form did not seek information on psychological damages and their consequences suffered by relatives of victims, or about the plight of widows and orphans.

Rejection of our review petition:
After failing in several attempts to persuade the Commission to review its order on the scope and the modalities of inquiry, we moved the Supreme Court once again. Our investigations to acquire further evidence of secret cremations had resulted in the acquisition of partial records of illegal cremations from six other districts in Punjab. These records showed the burning of 934 bodies labelled as unidentified. We had also completed a survey of 838 Incident-Reports of illegal abductions leading to disappearances from all over Punjab. The survey showed that in 222 of the 838 incidents, one or more members of the families either committed suicide in despair or died under trauma. In 500 out of 838, family members reported morbid psychological effects, including clinical psychiatric symptoms. In 224 cases, the security forces had destroyed, damaged and confiscated family properties. In 290 cases of abductions, the persons who eventually disappeared had been seen in the police custody. In 129 cases, the surviving relatives possessed sensitive information on 390 other incidents of enforced disappearance. In 759 out of 836 incidents, the family members of the disappeared persons had also suffered brutal torture in the police custody. The relatives of 149 victims incurred legal expenses to move the Punjab and Haryana High Court with petitions for writs of habeas corpus. Most of their petitions were dismissed following routine denials by the Punjab officials. We placed all of this evidence before the Supreme Court to argue that 'the flagrant violations of human rights on a mass scale', as disclosed by the CBI's report and endorsed by the Supreme Court itself, could not be confined to the limited scope of inquiry the NHRC had imposed. But the Supreme Court rejected the petition in October 1999. Classification of claims and the proposal of compensation without liability: We had also objected to the procedure adopted by the NHRC to circulate and elicit claims only through the office of the District Commissioner and had suggested that other agencies, including post offices and panchayats, be used for the purpose. But the Commission was deliberately following a restrictive method. As a result, the Commission received only 88 claim forms, which it further divided in three Lists. The first List called Annexture A includes those 23 claims, which have come from outside Amritsar. They have been excluded as falling outside the Commission's jurisdiction. The second List called Annexture B includes 47 claims, which the State of Punjab and the Union government are disputing on various grounds, including the grounds of merit. The third List called Annexture C consists of 18 cases in which the State of Punjab has taken the curious position that "without examining the correctness of the claims", and "without going into the merits of the matter, compensation may be determined." The State of Punjab has suggested a payment of one hundred thousand rupees each. It also wants the Union of India to bear the burden of payment as part of its "constitutional obligation to support the State government in preventing internal disturbance at the behest of Pakistan…". The Commission's 18 August 2000 order on these Lists explains that the government has "neither conducted any detailed examination in these cases on merits nor does it admit its liability… but it offers payment of compensation…" The order then goes on to endorse this position in the following words: "For this conclusion, it does not matter whether the custody was lawful or unlawful, or the exercise of power of control over the person was justified or not; and it is not necessary even to identify the individual officer or officers responsible/ concerned."

Fate of the CBI's reports:
The Commission has endorsed the proposal to pay one hundred thousand rupees each in these eighteen cases, without admitting liability, and to close the matter. The Commission is not even embarrassed by the anomaly that the State is disputing 47 claims in the Annexture B on merits. Earlier, the Commission used the CBI's report to limit the scope of inquiry to Amritsar district. The report includes a list of 2097 cremations, 585 fully identified, 274 partially identified and 1238 as yet unidentified. By its 5 August 1999 order, the Commission rejected our application for disclosure and inspection of the CBI's report, as also the periodic reports on the progress of its investigations into the issues of criminal culpability ordered by the Supreme Court, on the grounds of confidentiality and public interest. What has the Commission done to identify 1238 cremations listed in the CBI's report? What has it done to compensate the legal heirs of 585 fully identified and 274 partially identified cremations? In its 5 August 1999 order, the Commission referred to the CBI's investigations into the criminal liability of public authorities for the deaths and the cremations. What meaning can these opaque investigations have when the Commission is exulting in the government's offer to compensate 18 claimants of the Annexture C without admitting liability while disputing 47 claims of the Annexture B on merits? Why shouldn't these aggrieved families in Punjab believe that the NHRC is anything other a puppet arm of the State, organized for the consumption of Western donors?

The victims reject the offensive proposals:
The surviving family members of victims refuse to accept the proposal of compensation on these terms, which the National Human Rights Commission has endorsed. They are poor, many on the threshold of destitution, and are hapless before the imperturbability of the powers. They have been coping with the trauma of their relatives' enforced disappearance in the hope that some day the institutions of India would wake up to the imperatives of justice. They filled the claim forms circulated by the NHRC in the belief that justice, founded on an impartial and thorough investigation into their complaints, would form the basis for compensation and other reparative measures. As the proposals of compensation mooted by the NHRC fail to fulfill these minimum requirements of justice, they reject them with the contempt they deserve. They reject the mooted proposals as being abhorrent to the memories of their near and dear ones who had succumbed to the abuse of police and political power of the State. The proposal of compensation without admission of liability is directly affronting the surviving relatives of victims for the reason that, even if indigent, they have not gone to the NHRC begging. The proposal of compensation is offensive also for the reason that no attempt has been made to determine the wrongs and losses, which they and their families have suffered in the course of coping up with the atrocities inflicted on them by the authorities. The Supreme Court granted a compensation of Rs. 10 lakhs to the widow of Jaswant Singh Khalra, who first highlighted the matter of illegal cremations and was thereafter disappeared by the police. In other cases, the Commission is offering Rs. 1 lakh to settle other cases in a condescending manner. In the case of Khalra's disappearance, the Court granted compensation after conducting an impartial enquiry and determining the guilt of the officials responsible. In other cases, the proposal of compensation rests on the basis that there will be no determination of liability or a finding of guilt. The proposal is embedded in a discriminatory mindset as evident by the fact that the State is disputing on merits the claims of 47 others in the list B, while proposing to grant compensation to 18 in the list C without admitting liability or the merits of their complaints. The proposals become invidiously discriminatory by excluding those who suffered similar abuses in other districts of Punjab but were not cremated in one of the three cremation grounds specified in the CBI's report to the Supreme Court.

The Last legal recourse:
As their last legal recourse, the claimants in the Annexture C, have once again decided to move the Supreme Court. They demand that the court should either restore the original intent of justice, the universal nature of the right to life and liberty and equal protection of the laws to the proceedings pending before the NHRC, or put an end to this farce and stop further proceedings in the reference made to the NHRC in its 12 December 1996 order. The outcome of this petition will decide whether a reconciliation between the oppressors and the oppressed based on a synthetic and truthful reappraisal of the past, contrition for the prior abuses of power and a fresh outlook for the future, can happen or not.

We ardently hope that the pressure of public opinion against impunity and the spirit of empathy for the victims of atrocities, which this press conference should generate, will frustrate the mechinations of the State to permanently deny them justice that, if successful, would become the nadir of Indian democracy in Punjab.

Ram Narayan Kumar