Life term awarded to four police officers

The Indian state has used state terrorism as its preferred weapon to crush the resistance struggles of the people. Since the eighties, it has practiced the art of wiping out human rights activists, who investigated and brought to light the crimes of the state.

On October 16, 2007, the Punjab and Haryana High Court awarded life sentence to four police officers who were involved in the murder of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra.

Pronouncing the order, a Division Bench headed by Justice Mehtab Singh Gill said “The intention of the accused was clear. The deceased was abducted so his life could be extinguished. The deceased being a human rights activist was active in bringing to light extra-judicial killings done in the districts of Taran Taran and Amritsar.”

However, the man directly responsible for the murder of Khalra, is very much free. A writ petition is pending before the high court demanding the prosecution of Shri KPS Gill, then high profile police chief of Punjab, for ordering the murder.

While investigating the disappearance of a personal friend in 1994, Jaswant Singh Khalra had found that his body had been secretly cremated by the police in a cremation ground in Amritsar District. He launched a wider investigation into secret cremations.

In January 1995, Jaswant Singh Khalra and his colleague Jaspal Singh Dhillon released a report on mass illegal cremations using cremation ground records. KPS Gill, then Director General of Police in Punjab and hero of the Indian state’s “war against terrorism”, responded to their evidence in a press conference in Amritsar, saying “these Human Rights Wing folks --- are ISI agents and they are hatching a conspiracy to discourage the police machinery and re-incite militancy.” Further on, Gill declared “I will tell you where those kids are.” “These kids are in Europe, in Canada and in America, …. And these human rights organizations are telling us that thousands of kids have disappeared.”

Khalra challenged Gill to an open debate on the evidence. He also disclosed to the media and various prominent individuals, the death threats made to him by various police officials for his human rights investigations. On September 6, 1995, Khalra was abducted from his residence by police officers in uniform as well as civil dress. A reporter present in the home observed this abduction. Khalra’s wife immediately sent telegrams to the top officials of the state — the Chief Minister, Chief Justice and Police Chief amongst others. A habeas corpus petition was filed in the Supreme Court a few days later.

Khalra was detained and tortured for nearly two months by the Punjab police. According to a key witness, a Special Police Officer, during this period, KPS Gill himself interrogated Khalra. In late October 1995, Khalra was killed and his body was discarded in the Harike Canal in Amritsar, Punjab.

The Indian state has used state terrorism as its preferred weapon to crush the resistance struggles of the people. Since the eighties, it has practiced the art of wiping out human rights activists, who investigated and brought to light the crimes of the state. This has been the case in Kashmir, in Punjab, in Andhra Pradesh, in Manipur and Assam.

Jaswant Singh Khalra paid with his life, for daring to expose the crimes of the state.

Jaswant Singh Khalra was murdered by the Indian state because the top leadership of the state was afraid of exposure of the heinous massacre of tens of thousands of youth in Punjab.

As a result of the murder of Khalra, the case of thousands of youth being killed in custody and secretly cremated by the Punjab Police came to light. Finally, even the Supreme Court of India had to admit, though belatedly, that over two thousand youth were killed and secretly cremated by the Punjab Police in three crematoriums of Amritsar District, in a ten year period. However, despite the efforts of rights activists, the cases of thousands of others who were cremated secretly after being murdered by the police in other districts, or those whose bodies were thrown into canals like Khalra’s, have not been taken up.

Of the nine police officers who were chargesheeted in October 1996, two died during the course of the CBI trial. In 2005, the CBI Court awarded seven year terms to four police officers and life terms to two. Following an appeal, the terms of the four have now been increased to life.