What happens when a 21-year-old musician begins composing folk ballads critical of the Indian government?
Click here and listen to the story of Major Singh, a young Amritsar villager who chose to speak the truth, even while living through brutal government repression in Punjab, India from 1984 to 1995 (page 554).
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Although the vast majority of India’s counterinsurgency victims in Punjab were Sikh, Chaman Lal’s plight shows how impunity empowered its security forces to target anyone, including poor Hindu families like his. For the first time, we invite you to watch Chaman Lal’s story in high-definition. His inspiring yet fruitless struggle to obtain justice for the illegal abduction and murder of his son reminds us that the fight to end impunity in Punjab is far from over. Please share this video to give voice to Chaman Lal and the countless other parents who lost their children to India’s brutal counterinsurgency policies.
Impunity in Punjab is the third in a series of moving videos produced by the New Media Advocacy Project in collaboration with Ensaaf. Watch survivors and human rights activists tell how the Punjab Police destroyed families by violating human rights and disregarding legal consequences. By sharing the link you help end the silence surrounding Punjab’s decade of darkness.
In our new video, Paramjit Kaur Khalra describes the need for a truth commission to redress the thousands of disappearances and killings in Punjab, India perpetrated during the counterinsurgency of 1984 to 1995. In September and October 1995, Indian security forces illegally detained, tortured, and killed her husband, human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, for his work uncovering over 2,000 cases of extrajudicial executions and secret cremations in Amritsar district alone. Today, November 4, 2011, India’s Supreme Court upheld life imprisonment for five officers involved in Khalra’s unlawful abduction, torture, and killing. Mrs. Khalra continues to seek justice for the all victims of illegal killings and disappearances.
Our powerful new advocacy video, produced by the New Media Advocacy Project, showcases survivors’ determination to learn the true fate of their loved ones, as well as the continuing emotional and financial impact these abuses have had on families. Kashmir Singh’s son, Harjit Singh, was just one of the thousands of people disappeared or unlawfully killed by Indian security forces between 1984 and 1995. In the video, Kashmir Singh tells us: “My case has been highlighted before, but I’m asking you to bring even more attention to it. So that the government hears our voices . . . I’m asking you to tell this story to the world.”
Chaman Lal’s story is emblematic of the consequences of “national security” operations and policies that turn a blind eye to abuses. Although the vast majority of India’s counterinsurgency victims in Punjab were Sikh, impunity empowered its security forces to target anyone, including poor Hindu families like Chaman Lal’s. Above, watch him describe how the Punjab police abducted and murdered his son in a fake encounter, and how, one by one, the Supreme Court, the High Court, and the National Human Rights Commission, failed to give him any justice.
When Tarlok Singh and Balbir Kaur celebrated the birth of their son Surjit Singh, they could never have imagined he would live such a short life. Yet, in the midst of the violence that plagued Punjab during the “Decade of Disappearances,” Punjab Police killed Surjit Singh, like thousands of others, in a fake encounter. He was only 17.
In 2010, Ensaaf spoke to hundreds of other survivors in Punjab just like Surjit Singh’s family. Many of them had never before shared their experiences with civil society. Yet they welcomed us into their homes so that the lives and deaths of their loved ones could be documented and acknowledged.
Here, we’ve compiled photographs of several victims, shared by survivors, into a photo essay titled “Our Voices Matter”.
This summer, Ensaaf interviewed over 1,000 individuals - including hundreds of survivors - to capture stories of disappearances, unlawful killings, and torture in Amritsar during the Punjab counterinsurgency.
This ambitious achievement, which represents the largest deployment of human rights investigators in Punjab in over a decade, was only realized due to the financial support we received from supporters like you. As a small token of our thanks, we created a short video tribute to show our immense gratitude for the generosity and trust given to us by our donors.
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In June 1984, the Indian Army attacked Harmandir Sahib, popularly known as the Golden Temple, as well as 41 other gurudwaras (Sikh places of worship) throughout Punjab. The assault, codenamed “Operation Blue Star,” marked the beginning of a policy of gross human rights violations in Punjab that continues to have profound implications for the rule of law in India.
This brief photo essay includes photos from the assault itself, the Tribune (Chandigarh) and the BBC. The essay draws on information from the BBC and Chapter 1 of Ensaaf’s report Twenty Years of Impunity.
Ensaaf and the Benetech Human Rights Data Analysis Group released a podcast in accompaniment to their joint report, Violent Deaths and Enforced Disappearances During the Counterinsurgency in Punjab, India.
This report uses quantitative methods to scientifically demonstrate the implausibility that these lethal human rights violations are random or minor aberrations as suggested by Indian officials.
The podcast briefly explains the context of the report and discusses our preliminary findings.
Listen to the podcast.
Read the transcript.