Our Programs

Documentation & Education

“In order to escape accountability for their crimes, perpetrators will do everything in their power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the perpetrators’ first lines of defense, but if secrecy fails, the perpetrators will aggressively attack the credibility of the victim and anyone who supports the victim. If the victim cannot be silenced absolutely, the perpetrator will try to make sure that no one listens or offers aid... After every atrocity one can expect to hear the same apologies: it never happened, the victim is deluded; the victim lies;...the victim brought it upon him- or herself...; the victim exaggerates..., and, in any case, it is time to forget the past and move on.”

— Judith Herman, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

For over a decade, the Indian government has entrenched impunity by denying and covering-up its crimes. The reality of systematic disappearances, extrajudicial executions, and torture, however, has become impossible to deny. Ensaaf objectively documents these crimes and educates the public and policy-makers in order to expose the abuses, build evidence for accountability, and secure public support for survivors.

Project Highlights

Understanding Impunity Project: In late 2007, Ensaaf was selected to participate in a three-year India-wide survey of impunity entitled, "Understanding Impunity: Failures and Possibilities of Rights to Truth, Justice and Reparation." The project is based at the Kathmandu office of the South Asia Forum for Human Rights (SAFHR), and is funded by the International Development Research Center. The project is concentrating on four regions in India: Gujarat; Kashmir; the Northeast, including Assam, Manipur and Nagaland; and Punjab. The project aims to document and understand impunity on a regional level in order to form the basis of a coordinated strategy against impunity in India. Ensaaf is the only participant that is positioned as a regional consultant, contributing to the documentation efforts from Punjab, as well as an international consultant, advising on methodology, training, and advocacy. Other project participants include experienced researchers based in Kathmandu and the regions in focus, and prominent advocates and organizations from the human rights community, such as the Center for Law and Development, Lawyers' Collective, and Nyayagraha.

Ensaaf/Human Rights Watch Joint Report on Impunity in Punjab: On October 18, 2007, Ensaaf and Human Rights watch released a 123-page report, “Protecting the Killers: A Policy of Impunity in Punjab, India,” photo essay, and video testimonials. The report examines the challenges faced by victims in pursuing legal accountability for human rights abuses perpetrated during the government's counterinsurgency campaign. The report describes the impunity enjoyed by officials responsible for violations and the near total failure of India's judicial and state institutions to provide justice for victims' families. It proposes a comprehensive framework to address the institutionalized impunity that has prevented accountability in Punjab, including a commission of inquiry, a special prosecutor's office, and an extensive reparations program. "Protecting the Killers" is based on the analysis of thousands of legal records, news articles, and other documents, and dozens of interviews and meetings with survivors, lawyers, and NGOs.

Benetech: Quantitative Analysis: Ensaaf is pleased to partner with the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG), a Benetech Initiative. Using a variety of sources of documentation, including thousands of articles from the Punjab Tribune, Ensaaf is compiling data on the scale of fatalities during the height of police abuse under Punjab Police chief KPS Gill. HRDAG will provide quantitative analysis, based on scientific best practices, of this empirical human rights data. HRDAG's analyses are used by truth commissions, international criminal tribunals, and non-governmental organizations around the world.

Murder of Human Rights Defender Jaswant Singh Khalra: On September 6, 1995, Indian security forces abducted Jaswant Singh Khalra because of his work exposing the disappearances and killings of thousands of Sikhs in Punjab. Indian security forces subsequently tortured and murdered Khalra in late October 1995. On September 6, 2005, Ensaaf, Human Rights Watch and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice submitted a joint letter and background packet to the Congressional Human Rights Caucus urging it to hold hearings into Khalra’s case and his investigations. In August 2006, Ensaaf released Khalra’s last speech made to an international audience, with English subtitles, in which Khalra discusses his investigations into mass cremations and his readiness to die to expose the truth about these crimes.

Expert Medical Torture and Trauma Study: In 2005, Ensaaf organized the Physicians for Human Rights and the Bellevue/NYU School of Medicine Program for Survivors of Torture to conduct a study of 127 people in Amritsar, Punjab, whose relatives had been extrajudicially executed and secretly cremated by Punjab Police. These cases drew from the Punjab mass cremations matter. On October 24, 2005, PHR/Bellevue submitted their final report to the National Human Rights Commission.

Summer 2005 Torture and Arbitrary Detention Report: On October 5, 2005, Ensaaf released its report Punjab Police: Fabricating Terrorism through Illegal Detention and Torture. From June 2005 to August 2005, Indian police claim to have arrested several dozen individuals intent on reviving or supporting militancy in Punjab. Ensaaf’s investigation reveals that Indian security forces routinely resorted to illegal detention and frequently tortured detainees into making false confessions. The Indian police have presented elaborate stories of thwarted militant crimes, concealing the escalation in human rights abuses.

1984 Pogroms of Sikhs: Ensaaf's first report, Twenty Years of Impunity: The November 1984 Pogroms of Sikhs in India, analyzes thousands of pages of previously unavailable affidavits, government records, and arguments submitted to the 1985 Misra Commission, established to examine the Sikh Massacres in Delhi, Kanpur, and Bokaro. The report reveals the systematic and organized manner in which state institutions and Congress (I) officials perpetrated mass murder in November 1984 and later justified the violence in inquiry proceedings. The report applies the international law of genocide and crimes against humanity to the pogroms. Ensaaf released a second edition in early 2007, articulating the failings of the Nanavati Commission and the Action Taken Report after a thorough consideration of the evidence at the government’s disposal.

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