REFLECTIONS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS

ENDNOTE
Michel Foucault, in his Birth of the Prison, narrates the public execution of a potential
regicider in 1757 Paris. The execution was carried out following a court sentence
that required him to be conveyed to the scaffold where “the flesh will be torn
from his breast, arms, thighs and calves with red hot pincers, his right hand… burnt
with sulphur, and on those places where the flesh will be torn away, pour molten
lead, boiling oil… and then [have] his body drawn and quartered by four horses and
his limbs and body consumed by fire, reduced to ashes.” The crown used this ceremony
of punishment to publicly establish its supremacy over the threat of treason.
It was a liturgy and investiture of the monarchical power to overwhelmingly retain
people’s loyalty through a demonstration of its devastating force.
Times have changed and so, we claim, have the structures of the state and the
norms of punishing political crime. A state like India, defined and structured by a
written Constitution, is not supposed to practice violent ceremonies of self-affirmation
over the bodies of those they suspect desire its destruction. But, as we have
seen in all 672 cases of police cremations that we have discussed in this report, the
state’s “theatres of terror” continue to operate behind the walls of police stations
and interrogation centers, and their ceremonies of punishment remain as spectacular
and bloody as in Foucault’s example from 1757 France. The Indian Constitution
and its promises may be real, but so are their bloody and brutal violations and their
ceremonial character of the state’s implacability. We cannot help being confounded
by these parallel realities of constitutional promise and political practice, their structural
insuperability and the annihilation of intelligence by the violence of the paradox.
Incantations of human rights lose context or meaning and we begin to understand
why Theodor Adorno said that “to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric”.
We find ourselves in spiritual empathy with Ajaib Singh’s suicidal bereavement
illustrated in the Committee for Coordination on Disappearances in Punjab (CCDP)
1999 interim report.
Ajaib Singh’s is not the only family in Punjab with a tale of tragedy and impossible
redress. We have tried to capture the melancholy of life’s irrelevance in the
face of the state’s power to wish it away that permeates other myriad households,
dotting Punjab’s countryside, similarly destroyed by India’s war against the Sikh
separatist threat. The list of such people who have become black ink in our dusty
appendices.p65 599 4/27/03, 10:28 PM
600 Reduced to Ashes
registers is very long. The shipwreck of survival for their relatives would be another
long saga. The reader of this volume must be tired by the monotony of it all,
the same eternal story of police brutality and imperturbability of the powers. The
repetition of the name Singh, as all male Sikhs carry the same surname1 must make
it appear that the same Singh is abducted, tortured, disappeared or killed thousands
of times. In a way, that appearance belongs to the irrationality of individual histories
that vanish into nothingness. Human rights atrocities that remain unaccounted
for and outside institutional verification leave the serial order of time. The past
becomes a continuous nightmare, without awakening and beyond atonement. The
individual identities of the victims and the perpetrators of crimes lose relevance in
the myths of collective guilt and suffering.
Yet, in this report, we have attempted to recover the enormity of atrocities from
that rift in consciousness created by the life-exhausting and fruitless pursuit of accountability
by the victim families, on the one hand, and the complex denial and
obfuscation of facts by the Indian authorities and institutions, on the other. We
have attempted to recover the facts of atrocities, as systematically and objectively
as possible. We act because of our conviction that the recovery of atrocious truth in
a social and political space, where society as a whole can take responsibility, is a
perquisite for the restitution of wrongs.
Ours is only a feeble attempt. It needs the support of a more competent followup,
in order to expose and analyse the irrationality of the parallel worlds of the
rhetoric of rights and the realities of wrongs, identify their reasons in history, and
make them amenable to correction. Our documentation represents less than 10 per
cent of the victim testimony. The vast majority of incident reports, contained in our
two volumes, have come from parents of the disappeared who are themselves old
and may not live long to recount their experiences. Most of them are poor and
illiterate and do not know and heed the meaning of “evidence” in historical or legal
terms. By failing to record their experiences soon, we shall altogether lose the historical
and legal evidence, the meaning and the spiraling consequences of atrocities.
Apart from completing the documentation of violations, including enforced
disappearances and arbitrary killings, the urgent issues for further research are: [1]
The implications of trauma; [2] Survival after custodial torture; [3] The plight of
widows and orphans; [4] The effects of damage, destruction and confiscation of
property; [5] The working of the TADA courts and the pending prosecutions under
the act; [6] The role of the media; and [7] The role of medical professionals.
Normally, a report of this nature concludes with a set of recommendations addressed
to the powers that be. In this case, we do not know who constitutes the
appropriate authority to hear our findings and recommendations. It does not make
sense for us to address our recommendations to those Indian government agencies
that hold direct responsibility for these enormous human rights crimes and exult in
them, advocating amnesty to offenders and the “closing of the book”. We hope our
report does not illicit the same rhetoric of denial that tiresomely defines their response
to evidence of human rights crimes.
We had hoped that the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) would
draw from our investigative work at the grass-root level to make up for the failure
1 This was an egalitarian innovation of the 10th tenth Sikh Guru against India’s caste system.
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601
of the state’s investigative agencies in furnishing the facts necessary for its determination
and adjudication of the issues. Our experiences of participation in the proceedings
before the NHRC, over the last six years, have completely belied our
initial hopes. The commission has concluded that the records of investigations carried
out by the CBI are not helpful in revealing the necessary facts. The state of
Punjab and its agencies too have not provided any meaningful information. The
commission itself does not have an independent investigative agency to take on the
task. Even then, it has made no attempt to reach the victim families and receive their
depositions although it has become abundantly clear that all of the agencies involved
in the counter-insurgency operations, including the CBI, are complicit in
the conspiracy of impunity. We hope that the commission will use our case studies
to involve the victim families directly in its proceedings and use their testimony to
fulfill the mandate it has received from the Supreme Court.
We also appeal to the victim families to reach out to other segments of the
Indian population and share their experiences as mothers, fathers, wives, and children
of the disappeared. Their perseverance for justice, in spite of the destruction
they have suffered, moves us; we ask them to speak across social and political
differences and lead these efforts against impunity.
We also beseech the educated sections of the Indian middle class to pay careful
attention to the facts and the histories contained in this volume and hear the victims’
stories. They must recognize that at the heart of these human rights crimes lies their
secret compact with the state’s hidden demonic, guided by their parochial and sectarian
passions and prejudices. It is under their approving eyes and complicity that
the state forces can inflict pervasive atrocities on India’s religious minorities, politically
discontented segments of the population and non-dominant communities in
the country’s peripheries. The Nazis accomplished the Holocaust, as Thomas Mann
explained, under the same conditions of social collusion.2 Thus, only if they suppress
prejudices with an honest analysis of the facts and histories can we begin to
create space for restitution.
India is a constitutional state that is supposed to confine the powers of its agencies
by law and by clear divisions of their legislative, executive and judicial functions.
The Constitution and its agencies remained intact even as pervasive atrocities
occurred in Punjab. No official agency formally approved of them; all silently acquiesced.
The operations did not develop out of deliberations or policy decisions,
but the legislators and members of Parliament knew what was happening in their
constituencies. Judges and magistrates colluded with the torture and elimination of
detainees by literally closing their eyes to the evidence and by uncritically accepting
the official denials and lies. The media appeased the state by practicing selfcensorship.
Many journalists in the print, wire and electronic media supported the
murderous operations of the security forces more directly. This was the climate of
approval in which the atrocities occurred and unless we recognize and address these
issues contributing to the state of impunity in Punjab, the struggle for truth, accountability
and justice will continue to be thwarted.
2 Thomas Mann, Germany and the Germans, in Listen Germany: Twenty-five Radio Messages to the
German People over BBC, Knopf, NY, 1945, p. 5
Endnote
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603
PRESS NOTE ON MASS ILLEGAL
CREMATIONS 16 JANUARY 1995
APPENDIX - I
HUMAN RIGHTS WING (S.A.D.)
HEAD OFFICE: KOTHI NO. 30, Sec. 5, Chandigarh-160005 (INDIA)
Ph. (0172) 541244 P.P.
Ref. No. 103/95 Dated: 16-01-95
“DISAPPEARED:” CREMATION GROUNDS
The cases of ‘disappeared’ persons has been a source of constant concern for all
human rights groups working in Punjab. An estimated 2000 families from the
district of Amritsar alone, wait agonisingly for the return of their near and dear
ones. Some families, who cannot bear the uncertainty any more, just want to know
if their son, brother, husband or daughter is dead or alive so that they can perform
the last religious rites and accept the tragedy as the will of God.
The Human Rights Wing (HRW) of the Shiromani Akali Dal constituted a two
member team to investigate into the matter and try to get some leads, at least to the
“disappearances”. The investigation team came across some astounding facts which
are being released as under.
The investigation team decided to work in the Amritsar area and its neighboring
police districts. It was learnt that the police regularly bring bodies to the municipality
grounds for cremation, declaring them as unclaimed. The team found that 400
unclaimed bodies had been brought for cremation to the Patti municipality cremation
grounds. Bodies brought to the Patti municipal committee’s cremation grounds
came from as far as Khalra – 40 Kms, Kairon – 10 Kms, Harike – 15 Kms, Valtoha
– 30 Kms, Bhiki – 25 Kms. 700 unclaimed bodies to the Tarn Taran municipality
cremation grounds. The only record of these unclaimed bodies is available from the
receipt book through which firewood was issued for the disposal of the bodies. The
receipt book has the date and number of bodies brought, recorded on it.
In Amritsar district, the maximum unclaimed bodies brought for cremation was
to the cremation grounds near the Durgiana Mandir. From 1st June 1984 to the end
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604 Reduced to Ashes
of 1994 about 2000 bodies have been cremated as unclaimed. The officials of the
Durgiana Mandir cremation grounds expressed their inability to show any records,
but suggested that details will be available with the Amritsar registrar of Births and
Deaths. The details which could be gathered at the registrar’s office are given below.
During the 1st year of the Govt. of Mr. Beant Singh, 300 unclaimed bodies were
brought to the Durgiana Mandir cremation grounds by the police department. Out
of these 300 bodies names of 112 have been given and the rest were declared as
unidentified. 41 persons have been recorded to have died of bullet injuries or police
encounters. No reason has been recorded for the cause of the death of 259 persons.
Postmortems were conducted only on 24 bodies by the Amritsar Medical College.
No postmortem was conducted on 276 bodies. 5 bodies of females, as per the record,
out of which 3 names have been recorded. The details of the 3 female bodies are:-
Harpal Kaur, Village Dhulka. Dated 25.12.92. Achint Kaur & companion. Dated
30.9.92.
Two bodies are those of Kashmiris of Sopore, cause of death, ‘encounter’. One
unclaimed body is from near Chamkaur Sahib, in Ropar district.
Baghel Singh alias Gurdarshan Singh of village Deriwal was nabbed by the
Punjab Police in Bihar. News of his “arrest” was reported in the Punjab press. Various
organizations in Punjab apprehended him being eliminated in a faked encounter.
This was around the last week of Nov/first week of Dec/91. On the 19th.1.92, the
police knowing fully well the identity of Baghel Singh and his village, brought his
body to the Durgiana Mandir cremation grounds for cremation as unidentified and
unclaimed.
Mr. Piara Singh s/o Shingara Singh, Director of Central Co-operative Bank in
Amritsar, paternal uncle of Harminder Singh Sultanwind (Militant), Mr. Piara Singh
had gone to a relative’s farm in Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh. One morning, a jeep drove
up to the farm house, a team of doctors attired in white coats, sporting stethoscopes
approached the residents of the farm requesting them that a V.I.P. was coming to
the neighboring village to inaugurate a Govt. medical clinic and some respectable
citizens should also grace the occasion. They requested Mr. Piara Singh to come
with them. Mr. Piara Singh ended up at the Durgiana Mandir cremation ground on
16-12-92.
Mr. Pargat Singh “Bullet” was undergoing treatment at the Guru Nanak Hospital
Amritsar. He was abducted by the Raja Sansi police and his “unidentified” body
was brought to the Durgiana Mandir cremation grounds on 3-11-92.
As per the Punjab Police Rules No. 3, Rule 25.38 in Chapter XXV states the
procedure to be adopted in cases of dead bodies which are unidentified. The rule is
quoted as below: 25.38. If a body is unidentified, the officer making the investigation
shall record a careful description of it, giving all marks, peculiarities, deformities
and distinctive features, shall take the finger impressions and in addition to
taking all other reasonable steps to secure identification, shall, if possible, have it
photographed and in case where such action appears desirable, a description published
in the criminal Intelligence Gazette.
Unidentified corpses should be handed over to any charitable society which is
willing to accept them, and if no such society comes forward, they should then be
buried or burned.
appendices.p65 604 4/27/03, 10:28 PM
605
What is surprising is that the police has given the identity of the body and also
the village and yet disposed of the body as “unidentified” or “unknown”. The police
has not bothered to give the nature of deaths.
HRW would like to add here that this disposal of bodies is in addition to bodies
that are weighed down and dumped into the various rivers and canals.
HRW places on record details of just a few cremation grounds. Similar will be
the picture from the remaining cremation grounds.
HRW demands that keeping in view the seriousness of the case in mind, the
High Court order a CBI inquiry into the matter, and the deaths placed on record. So
that the agonising wait of thousands of families may end. Dependents can get death
certificates issued so that those who were employed, can proceed with the departmental
formalities.
The investigation team comprised of Mr. Jaswant Singh Khalra and Jaspal Singh
Dhillon.
Sd/- Sd/-
(JASWANT SINGH KHALRA) (JASPALSINGH DHILLON)
Appendix I
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606 Reduced to Ashes
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607
INCIDENT REPORT FORM
APPENDIX - II
THE COMMITTEE FOR COORDINATION ON
DISAPPEARANCES IN PUNJAB
Chandigarh Secretariat: 742, Sector 8, Chandigarh, Tel. 544920
New Delhi Secretariat: 56 Todarmal Road, (Bengali Market)
N Delhi. Tel. 23714531
A DESIGN FOR INCIDENT REPORT FORM
Name of the disappeared/ dead person:
Caste:
Father’s name:
Mother’s name:
Address:
..................................................................................................................(top sheet:
to tear along the dotted line)
Name of the disappeared/ dead person:
Alias, if any:
Caste:
Father’s name:
Mother’s name:
Address:
Alias if any:
Age (Give date of birth if possible):
Educational qualification:
Profession/ occupation:
Monthly earning:
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Other sources of income:
Marital status:
Name of the spouse and the address:
Age:
Employed/ unemployed/ details:
Spouse’s parents:
Father’s name and age:
Mother’s name and age:
Profession/occupation:
Residence:
Children:
Names/age/sex:
Names of other dependants within the joint family:
General background of the disappeared/ dead person:
(Specially relevant would be details of hostile interaction with the security forces
since 1984.)
Date and time of disappearance:
Location of disappearance:
(Include as much detail as possible)
Circumstances of disappearance:
(Short narrative statement with names of people responsible)
Are there witnesses? Yes/No.
Details of witnesses: Names/ addresses:
(Note: Specify if you do not wish to divulge the names of witnesses for the
present. In which case do not fill this column.)
Perpetrator/s:
Name/s:
Age/ Physical description:
The security agency to which the perpetrator/s belong:
Rank
Uniformed or in plainclothes?
Description of uniform/dress:
Attached to which police station when the incident happened?
The present posting:
Any other details which you might want to add:
When was the person last seen?
By whom?
Where?
Steps taken to trace the “disappeared” and the results:
appendices.p65 608 4/27/03, 10:28 PM
609
First Information Report filed? Yes/No
If yes, the number and the date:
The name of the police station:
Name of the officer who recorded the report:
Outcome, if any:
Habeas Corpus Petition filed? Yes/No
If yes, the number, date, and the court:
Name of the lawyer:
Address:
Telephone No.
Outcome:
Appeals made to local and national authorities. Give details. Photocopies if
possible:
Outcome:
Is it possible that the disappeared person may be alive? Yes/ No
Give reasons why you believe this:
If believed to be alive, name the location where the person might be found:
Is it assumed that the person has been killed and cremated? Yes/ No
If yes, why you believe this:
Is it assumed that the dead-body was disposed of in any other manner? Yes/ No
If yes, explain why you believe this:
Was the incident reported in newspapers? Yes/No
If yes, name the newspaper/s:
Date/s on which the report appeared:
Was there ever any report in the press about the disappeared/ dead prior to this
incident? Yes/ No
Give details:
Enclose copies if possible.
Have you had any official or unofficial communications with police officials
concerning the fate of the person at any time? Yes/No
If yes, give details:
Has any other person known to you also been abducted/ “disappeared”/reported
killed in armed encounter in connection with the reported incident? Yes/No
If yes, give details:
Do you know of the “disappearance” of any other person?
Has any other member/s of your family “disappeared”? Yes/No
If yes, give details:
Appendix II
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610 Reduced to Ashes
Did you receive the body for performing the last rites? Yes/ No.
If yes, from whom?
Was any property (structures, possessions, live stock or other chattel) damaged/
destroyed/ stolen/ expropriated in the course of the incident or subsequently? Yes/
No
If yes, give details:
Who owned the property which was damaged/ destroyed/ stolen/ expropriated?
Who damaged/ destroyed/ stole/ expropriated it?
Names:
Agency to which they belong:
Rank-designation:
Description for identification:
Age:
Physical description:
Describe the property:
1. Damaged: Value:
2. Destroyed: Value:
3. Stolen: Value:
4. Expropriated: Value:
Has the event of “disappearance” had any psychological/medical consequences in
the family? Yes/No:
If yes, give details:
Hospitalization/ Expenses:
Has there been any death in the family connected/ subsequent to the event of “disappearance”?
Yes/No:
If yes, give details:
Other comments:
Signature of the person giving details of the incident:
Name in full:
Father’s name:
Mother’s name:
Relationship to the missing/ killed/ cremated person:
Present Address:
Date/Place:
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611
DISTRICTS OF PUNJAB
APPENDIX - III
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INDIA
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613
Deputy Superintendent
of Police (+1)
APPENDIX - IV
Note: This chart shows the relevant positions mentioned in the report. It is not a
complete representation of the Police command structure.
Director General of Punjab Police
Inspector General of Punjab
Police (+1)
Assistant Inspector
General Pubjab Police
Deputy Inspector General (+1)
Incharge of Range
Senior Superintendent of Police (+1)
Incharge of District in Range
Superintendent of Police (+1)
Assistant Superintendent
of Police (+1)
Inspector (+1)
Sub-Inspector (+1)
Assistant Sub-Inspector (+1)
Head Constables (+1)
Constables (+1)
Additional DGPs (+1)

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