II. Why Habeas Corpus?

A. The Decision To Approach the Courts

Petitioners approached the High Court after exhausting police and political contacts. The families initially restricted their inquiries solely to their informal police contacts because they feared that the police would kill the detainee if they filed a written police complaint or approached judicial or political authorities. Mohinder Singh, for example, approached forty-three politicians and policemen about the disappearance of his son Jagraj Singh

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before deciding to file a case. Jagraj was a student activist and led many protests in Chandigarh. In an attempt to quell his activity, the Punjab Police registered fifteen cases against him from 1985 until his abduction. The courts, however, acquitted Jagraj of all charges. The police abducted Jagraj in January 1995, leaving behind his wife and two children. After Jagraj’s abduction, Mohinder Singh both vigorously pursued contacts with politicians and his court case, expressing resignation and disgust at the lack of help and the protracted litigation:

Why doesn’t the judiciary take any action against them? These judge-folks, they know everything. They listen to the pain-filled person and can tell his honesty. Yet still they are helpless . . . it’s been six and one-half years since I’ve been pushed around, and still I have no relief.[56]

Police also extorted money, harassed and detained other family members, occupied their homes, and registered false cases against them. For example, the police detained Sukhwinder Kaur’s extended family for at least eight months, and seven family members eventually “disappeared.” Giani Anokh Singh, her father, described how the police released part of her family after the police extorted money from them. Sukhwinder Kaur said she paid 7000 rupees to Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Paramjit Singh of Batala Station; he released only five of twelve family members. Although sometimes extortion helped, often influence and money could not secure the release of family members.

Families turned to the courts after the police harassment receded; however, because of the passage of time and their complete lack of knowledge about the whereabouts of the disappeared, they often doubted whether their family member was still alive. The Amritsar police abducted Jaswinder Singh’s brother, father, and grandfather.[57] As a result, Jaswinder told me that he went into hiding for two years with his mother and sister. Finally, they returned home, restructured their lives, and performed his sister’s marriage in 1995. Only then did his family file a petition.

Other families filed a petition for the following reasons: the relative security brought by the coming of the Akali government in 1997; advice from family members abroad; and heightened awareness that such a remedy existed because of the media’s increased coverage of habeas corpus petitions. Mohinder Kaur, partially blind and with a lame hand, did not know where the High Court was located, or what it meant to file a habeas corpus petition. She filed a petition after hearing in the media and from other people that it was one way to find out what had happened to her son.

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