Counter-Insurgency Legislation - Committee for Information and Initiative on Punjab (CIIP)

C. Counter-Insurgency Legislation

As part of its counter-insurgency operation, the Indian government passed several draconian laws that sanctioned police impunity. The Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) of 1987 established in camera courts and authorized detention of persons in a “disturbed area” based on mere suspicion.[30] Under Section 21, detainees were presumed guilty until proven innocent; Section 20(8) prohibited bail even if the detainee had not been charged after ninety days.[31] Between 1985 and 1995, the police registered 17,529 TADA cases in Punjab;[32] only one person was eventually convicted.[33]

The Armed Forces (Punjab and Chandigarh) Special Powers Act of 1983 empowered security forces to search premises and arrest people without warrant. Section 4 gave them the power to shoot to kill a suspected terrorist, with prosecutorial immunity, as granted in Section 7.[34] Amnesty International described this act as emboldening security forces with a “license to torture and kill with impunity.”[35]

The National Security Act of 1980, amended in 1984 and 1987, authorized detention of suspected terrorists without trial for two years in Punjab.[36] In 1988, the Parliament dissolved the Punjab State Assembly and passed the Fifty-ninth Amendment to the Indian Constitution, authorizing the extension of President’s rule[37] beyond one year,[38] and suspending due process guarantees for rights relating to life and liberty and to freedom of speech

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and association in Punjab.[39] This amendment also suspended the writ of habeas corpus.[40] Although the amendment was repealed in 1989, the Parliament again extended President’s rule in Punjab in March 1990.[41]

On August 18, 2001, in an effort to consolidate police impunity and supplement the protections of the counter-insurgency legislation, Union Home Minister L. K. Advani announced a proposal to give blanket amnesty to policemen facing prosecution for human rights abuses committed during the counter-insurgency operations. Advani was responding to announcements made by retired police officials who threatened to return their medals if the government did not drop all cases against them.[42] However, according to a press statement released by the Punjab Police Department on August 13, 2001, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has directed the CBI to investigate only eighty cases, which has led to merely seven convictions.[43]