This report on disappearances in Punjab

is the first published piece in a massive and on-going undertaking by a small group of very committed scholars and activists. For more than two years, I have followed their work. At first, I wondered why they were returning to the seemingly settled events of the last decade when new and pressing conflicts threatened individual liberties and personal security in
India and beyond. I was also skeptical about their ability to pierce through the thick
veils of ideology, intrigue and "state security" that obscure our understanding of the
campaign to pacify Punjab.
My initial skepticism was appeased by the careful methodology of the researchers.
They systematically collected testimonies from across the region, transcribed
them and invested hundreds of hours correlating these with public statements, documents,
and officials records. I also acquired a better understanding of the many
motivations that animated them: they were not taking sides in a conflict; they did
not expect to change history or right a history of wrongs with a single report. Rather,
they sought to empower the families of disappeared to reclaim their dignity, to
press the institutions of the state to perform their obligations, and to lay the ground
work for an honest retelling of a tragic part of recent history.
This would already be enough to legitimize the project. But current events in
India and the world render the undertaking all the more relevant. When viewed in
the light of police, court and crematoria records, the raw material of this report - the
hundreds of testimonies - raise serious questions about the state's willingness to
honestly address the problem of balancing justice and security. The testimonies tell
a story of detainees cremated after their court ordered release, of "disappeared"
policemen whose names are consistently forgotten, of high-level policemen who
portray a simple story of good vs. evil. Even at a time when TADA reigned supreme,
the few judicial niceties still required appeared to be too much for the forces
of law and order.
Many of those who designed and implemented the policies in Punjab are still
active today. They are treated as authorities on the subject of terrorism. At a time
of renewed pressure on both courts and police to stop communal violence and prevent
terrorism, this report should help enable a full discussion of the costs and
benefits of previous action.
There are many kinds of human rights reports: There are reports that shame,
reports that shock, and reports that inform. Some leave the reader stunned, some
angry, and some simply confused or nonplussed. Can you trust the author? Is the
information objective? Are biases exposed and discussed?
In this case, the reader needn't trust the good faith of the authors or agree with
their stated or unstated opinions. The report presents massive evidence gathered
from families and officials who participated and suffered in the struggles in Punjab.
PREFACE
introduction.p65 1 4/27/03, 10:05 PM
Reduced to Ashes
The very presentation is a rebuke to the National Human Rights Commission that
has advanced so little in the course of its investigation.
The sheer mass of testimonies makes it impossible to dismiss out of hand. If
there are questions about their veracity, it is for the authorities to raise them now. If
even some of the testimonies are true, then the official story must change: it is
impossible to dismiss those who died as simply "terrorists." If the testimonies are
substantially true, then the work of the NHRC and the courts has barely begun
because there are glaring violations of rights to be addressed and responsibility to
be apportioned.
The authors of this report have benefited from the moral support of many people
over the years and the financial support of very few. They have made offices out of
beds and the corners of rooms and turned nights into work days. A good report is a
call to action. They will have succeeded if we, the readers, answer this call.
Peter Rosenblum
Clinical Director
Human Rights Program, Harvard Law School
Boston, MA, December 2002
II
introduction.p65 2 4/27/03, 10:05 PM
INTRODUCTION
Punjab, rather the truncated part of the province east of the Pakistani border that
remained with India after the 1947 partition of the subcontinent, is a member
state of the Indian Union. Totally landlocked, it covers 50,000 out of India's 3.3
million sq. kilometers of a diverse geography. Its population of approximately 22
million people is dominated by the Sikhs, a distinct religious community initiated
by Guru Govind Singh in 1699. W. Owen Cole's dictionary of Sikhism defines a
Sikh as "any person who believes in God; in the 10 Gurus; in their principal scripture
known as Guru Granth Sahib; in the Khalsa initiation ceremony and who does
not believe in the doctrinal system of any other religion."1 Less than 2 per cent of
India's one billion population, the Sikhs constitute more than 62.1 per cent of Punjab's
approximately 22 million people.
Before the partition of 1947, Punjab used to be an overwhelmingly Muslim
province. The communal partition of 1947 and the civil war in its wake, took a toll
of 200,000 to half a million lives by various estimates. In less than four decades of
that traumatic experience, the Sikhs witnessed another spell of a bloody political
unrest. This unrest developed from the Sikh political agitation to obtain a radical
measure of political devolution. By the middle of the 1980s the unrest became violently
separatist and was ruthlessly crushed by the Indian government.
Reduced to Ashes: The Insurgency and Human Rights in Punjab is the final
I have no hope. In ten to fifteen years, we will also sit down and give up.
How much can we do?
-Paramjeet Kaur, wife of Jaswant S. Khalra
Disappeared 6 September 1995
Why doesn't the judiciary take any action against them? These judge-folks,
they know everything. They hear the pain in the voices of the victims and see
the honesty in their eyes. Yet they are helpless . . . it's been six-and-a-halfyears
since I've been pushed around, and still I have no relief.
-Mohinder Singh, father of Jagraj Singh
Disappeared 14 January 1995
1 W. Owen Cole and Piara Singh Sambhi, A Popular Dictionary of Sikhism, Curzon Press, London, 1990
introduction.p65 3 4/27/03, 10:05 PM
Reduced to Ashes
report of the Committee for Coordination on Disappearances in Punjab (CCDP),
which focuses on human rights abuses that occurred in the period from 1984 to
1994. This report, as Peter Rosenblum suggests in the preface, is the "ground work
for an honest retelling of a tragic part of history". It is an attempt to tell the truth
about political killings, enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrests and prolonged
unlawful detentions that became the stock-in-trade of the anti-insurgency
operations in Punjab. It reveals the complex denial by the state agencies and their
defenders and the institutional participation in the scheme of impunity. It does not
take sides on the political guilt or innocence of the victims; eschews rhetoric and,
significantly, stays clear from the quicksands of political solutions. The report, however,
lays bare the parallelism of the rhetoric of rights and the reality of extreme
human rights abuses that bedevils the Indian democratic paradigm.
It may be asked why another report on Punjab? It could be justifiably argued
that already much has been written about the abuse of human rights in Punjab and
that by raking up all this once again we might jeopardise the process of "healing".
But as we know, the silence of graveyard that obtains in Punjab today is not a
reflection of peace. The enquiry being conducted by the National Human Rights
Commission (NHRC), under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, in the disappearances
and illegal cremations in Punjab, shows the deep social divisions that is
endangering the prospects of justice and peace in the state. Every attempt to bring
justice to the victims, reform the institutions in order to achieve transparency, structural
equality and democracy has been frustrated by powerful persons linked with
the pervious administration that perpetrated the horrible abuses in the mistaken
belief of defending the integrity of the state. Their demand for amnesty has found
support in the highest quarters of the Indian government. On 19 August 2001, the
union home minister spoke at a function organized by the Hind Samachar group of
newspapers at Jalandhar to announce that the government was "contemplating steps
to provide legal protection and relief to the personnel of the security forces facing
prosecution for alleged excesses during anti-insurgency operations" in Punjab,
Kashmir and the north-eastern provinces of India. According to a report in The
Asian Age, the Union Home Minister indicated "some form of general amnesty"
and suggested that "forces deployed to combat terrorism anywhere in the country
must be given special rights and powers". K. P. S. Gill, former director-general of
Punjab police welcomed the move and, according to a story in The Indian Express,
repeated his charge that the cases against police officers "were based on concocted
evidence by the investigating agencies acting under undue and extra-constitutional
pressures". The Home Minister's announcement was hailed also by the Communist
Party of India (CPI) and the Congress party, which promised to "withdraw all the
cases against the innocent cops" if voted to power. The subsequent state assembly
elections in Punjab returned the Congress to power and its government in the state
is led by Amrinder Singh, the scion of Patiala royalty who converted the issue of
amnesty to police officials into an election pledge. It is in this context and the declared
positions on impunity by both the state and the Union government that the
NHRC will have to weigh the evidence of human rights crimes offered in this volume
of the report before proceedings in the matter of abductions leading to illegal
cremations by the Punjab police in Amritsar district
The decade of political violence has left behind a large number of victims who
IV
introduction.p65 4 4/27/03, 10:05 PM
are still seeking justice. These people are trapped in a web of fear, rumour and
myth. They need to be released from the psychology of the victim-hood. But their
journey from the bewilderment of shattered lives under a complex political conspiracy
to a position of purposeful survival is not possible without the acknowledgment
of what happened. The complex denial of truth not only serves the purpose of
making atrocities invisible, it also makes the experiences of atrocities irrevocable.
It also compromises the process of healing and keeps the state embedded in the
culture of impunity. It is the most serious roadblock in the path of transition from
conflict to sustainable peace, from repression to democracy. As N. J. Kritz has
noted, "the assumption that individuals and groups that have been victims of hideous
atrocities will simply forget about them or expunge their feelings without some
form of accounting, some semblance of justice, is to leave in place the seeds of
future conflict."2
The data contained in this volume shows troubling contributions to police impunity
at all levels of the state and national government and judiciary. For example,
the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India's premier investigative agency,
failed to seriously and properly investigate the matter of illegal cremations as entrusted
to it by the Supreme Court in 1995. At the conclusion of their investigation,
the CBI submitted three lists of identified, partially identified and unidentified cremations
conducted by the police. These lists reveal several discrepancies. The CBI
failed to identify persons it easily could have identified from complaints filed by
victim families, interviews with them, police records, and press reports; it duplicated
records and listed persons who had been cremated by their families, not by
the police; and it failed to properly investigate the cremations of additional persons
reported as having died in the same encounters and also the cremations of others
listed under the same police reports. Thus, it did not go beyond the police records to
examine the actual extent of illegal cremations in Amritsar district.
The report also shows how the police regularly and openly flouted legal procedures
for arrest and search. The police failed to respond to families' requests for
information regarding the abducted persons; they extorted money from victim families
and they travelled outside of their jurisdiction to capture people. The volume
documents the prevalence of custodial torture and traces the patterns of its use against
family members, the police's destruction, expropriation or damage of property belonging
to victim families and the complicity of the judiciary in ensuring impunity
for custodial torture and death.
The defenders of impunity in Punjab have been vocal against the human rights
litigation that seeks accountability and restitution of hideous abuses of power. On 8
June 2001, K. P. S. Gill published an article in the Hindustan Times titled "Man in
Uniform Demands Justice". The article argued that "those who risked their lives in
the defence of the State" are being subject to "a humiliating process of prosecution
in a multiplicity of cases that were intentionally and maliciously lodged … as a
strategy of vendetta by the front organizations of the defeated terrorist movement".
Gill asked: "How long will men continue to fight and to die for India, if no one in
the country speaks for the men in uniform? Can the power of the state survive the
Introduction
2 Kritz, N. J., "Accountability of International Crime and Serious Violations of Fundamental Rights:
Coming to terms with atrocities: A review of accountability mechanism for mass violations of human
rights", Law and Contemporary Problems, fall, 1996
V
introduction.p65 5 4/27/03, 10:05 PM
Reduced to Ashes
erosion of the confidence and authority of those who protect it?"
This rhetoric of morale and the national security is evidence of attempts to thwart
the process of accountability. In his foreword to a book titled Human Rights and the
Indian Armed Forces, Gill criticised the "systematic adoption of human rights litigation
as a weapon against agencies of the State by criminals and by violent groups
who themselves reject democracy and seek the overthrow of lawful and elected
government". According to him: "An overwhelming proportion of public interest
human rights litigation is today being initiated by front organizations of criminal
conglomerates and of virulent underground terrorist movements in a systematic
strategy to harass and paralyse security forces and the police."3
In this context it is important to note what the El Salvador Commission on Truth
noted in the introduction of its 1993 report: "A situation of repeated criminal acts
may arise in which different individuals act within the same institution in unmistakably
similar ways independently of political ideology of the government and decision
makers. This gives reason to believe that the institutions may indeed commit
crimes, if clear-cut accusations are met with a cover-up by the institution to which
the accused belonged and the institution is slow to act when investigations reveal
who is responsible. In such circumstances, it is easy to succumb to the argument
that repeated crimes mean that the the institution is to blame."4 Clearly it is necessary
to prosecute such individuals who formulated, planned and organised grave
human rights abuses in the name of national security. The Nuremberg Trial established
this principle internationally.
A public knowledge of the truth is therefore necessary not only to release the
victims from the past, it is also required for strengthening the legitimacy of the
healing process initiated by a new regime for augmenting society's commitment to
justice. Without acknowledgement of what has happened, the circle of impunity
and injustice cannot be broken and the impartiality and independence of the judicial
mechanisms -- trials and legal tribunals -- and the rule of law cannot be restored.
Justice is both a means of ensuring accountability for grave human rights abuses
and a preventive, deterrent mechanism.
Outline of the Report
Chapter One of the report, Jaswant Singh Khalra: A Martyr for Human Rights,
explains the origins of the CCDP's work and the early evidence of mass illegal
cremations. It gives a narrative history of Punjab and its human rights inspirations,
intertwining the family history of Jaswant Singh Khalra, and ends with the details
of his disappearance and the on-going trial of the accused officers.
Chapter Two of the report, Impunity by All Means: Rights and the Dead-Ends of
Law, gives a description of the extent and depth of impunity for these human rights
violations. The chapter provides an explanation of the need for a public discourse
3 Air Commodore Ran Vir Kumar & Group Captain B. P. Sharma, Human Rights and the Indian Armed
Forces: A Source Book, Sterling Publishers, New Delhi, 1998, pp. xiv - xv
4 Report of the Commission on Truth, El Salvador, 1993. The Commission on Truth the 1980-1991
Internal Armed Conflict in El Salvador collected information from 2,000 primary sources referring to
7000 victims and information from secondary sources referring to over 20,000 victims of extra judicial
killings, enforced disappearances, torture and hostage taking.
VI

amidst the banning of the privately-established people's commission. Next, it gives
a detailed examination of the legislative apparatus of counter-insurgency. Chapter
Two also discusses the development and reorganization of the Punjab police during
the counter-insurgency operations. This section reproduces an interview with a
senior police official, describing the brutal details of the torture and death of a Sikh
religious leader as well as the patterns and practices of police abuse. The chapter
concludes with an in-depth factual and legal analysis of the on-going proceedings
before the NHRC. This chapter demonstrates how all procedures of law in India
have failed to address the violations of fundamental rights in Punjab and have contributed
to police impunity.
While Chapter Three explains the methodology used by CCDP in its investigative
work, Chapter Four analyses the data presented in this volume. It focuses on
explaining trends and highlighting specific examples on the following issues: The
characteristics of the investigation by the CBI; abuse of police powers; implications
of the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1987; use of custodial
torture; role of Indian armed forces; violations of property rights; complicity of the
lower judiciary; and the issues of medico-legal ethics.
Chapter Five presents specific information about the personal and political backgrounds
of 672 victims and the circumstances in which the victims disappeared or
were executed before being cremated by the police. All the cases draw from the
CBI's lists being adjudicated before the NHRC and focus on Amritsar district alone
- one out of 17 districts in Punjab. Although this matter of police abductions leading
to illegal cremations was initiated six years ago before the NHRC, the commission
unfortunately has failed to examine a single case of abuse. It has also not heard a
single victim's testimony or deposition.The volume concludes with an Endnote:
Reflections and Recommendations, as well as a collection of appendices.
The CCDP is also simultaneously launching its website: www.punjabjustice.org.
This website not only includes the electronic version of the report, it also has a
searchable database of the CBI's lists of illegally cremated victims, video interviews
and documents that supplement the collection of materials in the report. We
hope that the CCDP will subsequently release the second volume of its final report,
presenting its investigative material on another 1,190 cases of extra-judicial executions
or disappearances drawn from all of Punjab.
Goals
The victims of political violence are frequently neglected. The governing elite - the
politicians, the bureaucracy and the military tend to forget them. This report is an
attempt to make the victims visible. It lays bare their experiences, expectations and
fears in the hope that they will be acknowledged and the violators punished. This is
central to the moral recovery of the victims and the society as a whole. As J. P.
Lederach points out, "by telling and hearing of these stories, we as a people will be
able to validate the experiences and feelings of the victims, restore their dignity and
assist them to re-enter society as equal partners".5 Truth telling is the foundation for
Introduction
5 Lederach, J. P., Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies, USIP, Washington
D.C., 1997.
VII
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Reduced to Ashes
reconciliation of deep social and political divide. This work is being done by the
truth and reconciliation commissions in many war-torn countries. This is the core
of transitional justice. Experiences of the truth and reconciliation commissions
worldwide underline the importance of truth telling for ensuring that impunity for
violations are broken so that the aspiration of "never again" is realised and national
reconciliation is achieved.
The goals of the South Asia Forum for Human Rights in bringing out this report
are:
To give the victims a voice by presenting their testimonies of human rights
abuse;
To strengthen the NHRC's efforts to move forward in the adjudication of issues
and determination of facts within the mandate in this matter of police abductions
leading to secret illegal cremations in Punjab, which it received from the
Supreme Court in December 1996;
To shift the discourse on human rights in Punjab from the rhetoric to an examination
of the facts and the law;
To create a national memory of mass atrocities based on verifiable records so
that the victims and their deaths do not become obfuscated events;
To encourage the human rights community and other victims of human rights
abuses in India to develop a larger solidarity and the programmatic clarity for
building a human rights culture based on justice;
To ask the international community to intervene to encourage India to fulfil its
obligations to protect fundamental human rights; and
To define issues for further analysis and research.
Tapan Bose
VIII
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CHORONOLOGY
16 January 1995: Jaswant Singh Khalra, general secretary of the Akali Dal's
human rights wing, and Jaspal Singh Dhillon released copies of official documents
that showed that security agencies in Punjab had secretly cremated thousands
of bodies after labelling them as "unidentified/ unclaimed". It was alleged
that these were the bodies of those who had been abducted by the police
and the other security forces deployed in Punjab and who had subsequently
disappeared from such custody. The allegations were based on a survey of the
number of missing persons in the district and an investigation of the records of
three crematoria in Amritsar district - one of the 13 erstwhile districts in the
state. The press release asserted that an investigation would reveal a similar
state of affairs at other crematoria in the state. [See Appendix I]
January 1995: Khalra's organisation filed a writ petition in the Punjab and
Haryana High Court, asking for an investigation into the disappearances and the
subsequent cremations. The high court dismissed the petition on grounds that it
was "vague" and that the petitioner organisation lacked the locus standi for filing
such a petition.
3 April 1995: The Committee for Information and Initiative on Punjab (CIIP)
moved the Supreme Court of India, in a writ petition under Article 32 of the
Indian Constitution, to demand a comprehensive inquiry into the allegations of
disappearances and subsequent, illegal cremations by the police in Punjab.
6 September 1995: Armed commandoes of the Tarn Taran police, Amritsar
district, abducted Khalra from outside his house.
7 September 1995: At the behest of Mrs. Paramjit Kaur Khalra, the wife of
Jaswant Singh Khalra, Mr. G.S. Tohra, the erstwhile president of the Sikh
Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), sent telegrams to various people
including one to Justice Kuldip Singh, the then sitting judge of the Supreme
THE MATTER OF POLICE ABDUCTIONS
LEADING TO ILLEGAL CREMATIONS BEFORE
THE NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
introduction.p65 9 4/27/03, 10:05 PM
Reduced to Ashes
Court of India, complaining about Khalra's abduction.
9 September 1995: Paramjit Kaur filed a regular habeas corpus petition before
the Supreme Court praying that Khalra be produced before the Court.
11 September 1995: Justice Kuldip Singh of the Supreme Court treated the
telegram from Mr. G.S. Tohra, received at his residence, as a petition for a writ
of habeas corpus and directed notice of the petition to the state parties.
15 November 1995: The Supreme Court directed the Central Bureau of Investigation
(CBI), India's premier investigative agency, to enquire into Khalra's
abduction and the facts contained in Khalra's press note of January 1995.
22 July 1996: The CBI submitted an interim report disclosing 984 illegal cremations
at a crematorium in Tarn Taran, Amritsar district, between 1984 to
1994. The Supreme Court directed the CBI to continue its investigations and
ordered it to issue a notice to the public at large seeking assistance in its inquiry.
30 July 1996: The CBI submitted a report stating that nine officers of the
Punjab police, acting on the orders of senior superintendent of police (SSP) Ajit
Singh Sandhu, were responsible for Khalra's abduction and disappearance.
The Supreme Court directed the CBI to initiate their prosecution on charges of
conspiracy and "kidnapping with intent to secretly and wrongfully confine a
person".
9 December 1996: The CBI submitted its fifth and final report to the Supreme
Court on the issue of police abductions leading to illegal cremations.
11 December 1996: At the request of the CBI, the Supreme Court ordered that
the contents of the CBI report be kept secret, since further investigation had to
be undertaken by the agency. The Court directed the CBI to undertake the investigation
of all the cases that were required to be registered as a result of the
final report.
12 December 1996: The Supreme Court, in its order, recorded that the final
report by the CBI disclosed that 2,097 illegal cremations were carried out by the
security agencies in three crematoria of Amritsar district. The CBI claimed to
have fully identified 582 of the bodies so cremated, partially identified 278 bodies
so cremated and could not identify 1,238 bodies. The Supreme Court directed
the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) "to have the matter
examined in accordance with the law and determine all the issue which are
raised before the commission by the learned counsel for the parties". It made it
clear that "Since the matter is going to be examined by the commission at the
request of this Court, any compensation awarded shall be binding and payable."
[See Appendix 5]
January 1997: The NHRC asked all the parties appearing before it to make
X
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preliminary submissions on "the scope and ambit" of the reference made to it by
the Supreme Court and on the "capacity in which the commission functions",
i.e. whether the commission was limited to the powers conferred upon it by the
Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, or whether it was, for the purposes of
this reference, a sui-generis designate of the Supreme Court, with powers to
adjudicate on the issues entrusted to it by the Court, without being fettered by
the limitations contained in the act.
4 August 1997: After hearing at length all the views placed before it, the NHRC,
in a detailed order on the preliminary contentions, held that it was a sui-generis
designate of the Supreme Court, appointed to carry out the Court's mandate, and
vested with all of the powers of the said Court under Article 32 of the Indian
Constitution. It also concluded that the Supreme Court had referred the whole
matter to the Commission, with no territorial or other limits on the inquiry. On
the same date, by a separate order on "Proceedings", the NHRC stated that in
view of the large number of alleged cremations it would be appropriate to invite
claims by public notice. After ascertaining the extent of culpability or negligence
on the part of the state and its authorities, the basis for quantification of
compensation could be formulated, the NHRC stated.
4 September 1997: At the request of the Central government the NHRC stayed
the conduct of the proceedings before it, to allow the Central government to
challenge the 4 August 1996 order by the NHRC.
3 October 1997: A 'clarification petition' was filed by the Union of India before
the Supreme Court querying whether the 12 December 1996 order of the Court
empowered the NHRC to function as a sui-generis designate of the Supreme
Court, untrammelled by the provisions of the Protection of Human Rights Act,
1993. The application also challenged the NHRC's view that the Supreme Court's
order of 12 December 1996 gave it unfettered jurisdiction to investigate human
rights violations in Punjab. It was contended in the application that such an
interpretation would result in "thousands of false claims".
10 September 1998: The Supreme Court dismissed the Union government's
clarification petition and upheld the NHRC's view of the mandate conferred
upon it. The Court held, "In deciding the matters referred by this Court, the
National Human Rights Commission is given a free hand and is not circumscribed
by any conditions."
13 January 1999: The NHRC passed an order on the 'scope' of the inquiry,
confining its mandate to the alleged unlawful cremation of the 2,097 bodies in
three crematoria in Amritsar district. It rejected the contention that the commission
should take a more expansive view under which 'enforced disappearances',
'extra-judicial executions' and other allegations of human rights violations
throughout the state would be investigated. The NHRC directed its office to
publish public notices inviting claims from legal heirs in a prescribed form. The
claimants were required to state on oath that their kin had been cremated at one
Choronology XI
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Reduced to Ashes
of the three cremation grounds in Amritsar district that had been investigated by
the CBI. The notice also indicated that only the cases of persons who filed these
claims would be taken up for consideration.
24 March 1999: The NHRC dismissed the application of the CIIP seeking a
review of the 13 January 1999 order. The commission held that it had adopted
a two-pronged approach on the issue. One, to invite claims from members of
the affected public and the other, to require the state of Punjab to explain each
case of alleged illegal cremation in the crematoria of the three police districts of
Amritsar.
5 August 1999: The NHRC declined the CIIP's application for the disclosure
and inspection of the reports of the CBI, containing the results of the investigation
conducted by the CBI, on the ground that it might hamper "smooth investigation".
Meanwhile, the notice issued by the commission in January 1999 had
elicited 88 claims from the public. In its second order of the same date, the
commission directed that copies of these claims be furnished to the state of
Punjab, which would respond by categorising them into 'undisputed' and 'disputed'
cases.
24 August 1999: The CIIP applied to the Supreme Court for a clarification on
the mandate conferred upon the NHRC by the Court's order of 12 December
1996. The application stressed that the illegal disposal of bodies was not confined
to three cremation grounds in Amritsar, and that the starting point of the
investigation has to be the allegation of disappearance. The CIIP also prayed for
access to the CBI's report.
11 October 1999: The Supreme Court rejected CIIP's application and held that
it was not prepared to interfere with the proceedings being conducted before the
NHRC at that stage.
Thereafter: In an expression of disappointment with the turn of events, the
CIIP withdrew from active participation in the proceedings before the NHRC.
However, it continued to monitor the proceedings.
19 January 2000: Based on a letter from the Punjab government, its counsel
submitted before the NHRC his client's response to the 88 claim petitions received
pursuant to the public notice issued by the NHRC. The Punjab government
broke up the 88 claims as follows: In 23 claims it was stated that the body
of the disappeared persons had been cremated in a cremation ground other than
the three specified by the NHRC as falling within the purview of their inquiry in
the matter. These were, therefore, not maintainable. It disputed 47 claims on
several grounds, including for the reasons that these claimants had approached
other fora for compensation or because these cases were being investigated by
the CBI. In 18 cases, the Punjab government offered that it was prepared to pay
Rs. 100,000 each as compensation without admitting liability and without going
into the merits of the claims. Simultaneously, the Punjab government as-
XII
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serted that the burden of paying the compensation should be borne by the Central
government.
18 August 2000: The NHRC, apparently, endorsed the offer of the Punjab government
to compensate the 18 families with Rs. 100,000 each (approximately
US$2,000) without admission of wrongdoing or prosecution of officials. The
commission's order states, "For this conclusion it does not matter whether the
custody was lawful or unlawful, or the exercise of power of control over the
person was justified or not; and it is not necessary even to identify the individual
offer or officers responsible/concerned." [See Appendix 6]
On reading the 18 August 2000 order by the NHRC, the CIIP decided that it
had to intervene and, as a first step, travelled throughout Punjab to meet the
families of the 18 disappeared persons to elicit their views on the offer of compensation.
All the families unanimously rejected the Punjab government's offer
of compensation without determination of liability and stated so on affidavit.
31 January 2001: The CIIP filed these affidavits before the NHRC, along with
an application pointing out that the case before the commission could not be
narrowed down to the claims received as, by the 19 January 1999 order, the
commission had bound itself to investigate all the 2,097 cremations carried out
at the three cremation grounds in Amritsar district.
15 February 2001: The NHRC reaffirmed its commitment to investigate all the
2,097 cremations, thereby restoring the case to the position that obtained after
the 13 January 1999 order.
20 March 2001: The NHRC directed the CBI to furnish a three part list of the
persons cremated: List 'A' consisting of fully identified persons, List 'B' consisting
of partially identified persons, and List 'C' consisting of unidentified persons.
3 May 2001: The CBI furnished copies of the three lists to the parties before the
NHRC. The commission directed the CBI as well as the Punjab government to
make available for inspection all of the material in their custody with respect to
these cremations.
15 June 2001: In a meeting held at the NHRC office, the Punjab government
announced that all the records pertaining to the 2,097 cremations were in the
CBI's custody and they, therefore, had nothing to produce by way of records for
inspection.
23 July 2001: Counsel for the CIIP, along with a member of the CIIP, inspected
the records produced by the CBI. The inspection could not be completed on
that date.
26 July 2001: The CIIP continued with its inspection of the CBI's records, al-
Choronology XIII
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Reduced to Ashes
beit under the close scrutiny of over 20 officials from the Punjab government
and the Punjab police. Ostensibly, these officials were also present for inspecting
the CBI records. However, their real purpose became clear when one of
them objected to the CIIP being permitted to inspect a particular bundle of files.
The assistant registrar of the commission present immediately stopped the CIIP's
inspection.
8 October 2001:, A joint inspection was carried out under the supervision of R.
Venkataramani, the Amicus Curiae appointed by the NHRC to assist it. This
inspection made it clear that the record produced by the CBI would be of very
little help for two reasons. First, because it was, mostly, illegible, and second,
because the record produced was very sketchy. If this was, as claimed, the
entire record seized by the CBI in the course of its investigations, it was indicative
of the poor quality of the investigation done.
29 November 2001: The NHRC called for submissions from the parties suggesting
the "points of substance" (issues) to be framed for further proceedings
confined, in the first instance, to the cases of the 582 identified cremations.
4 February 2002: After hearing the parties and the Amicus Curiae, the NHRC
framed four "issues" that "arise for consideration in respect of the fully identified
bodies".
2 September 2002: After a series of postponed hearings, the NHRC met to
resume the proceedings. The Punjab government submitted an application asking
for the reformulation of the "points of substance".
16 September 2002: The Punjab government decided not to press its application
for a review of the "points of substance" framed by the NHRC. The
commission allowed the state government's prayer for permission to inspect the
documents seized by the CBI and directed that after such an inspection, it should
file affidavits with respect to each of the 582 "identified" cremations by 31
October 2002.
There has not been any hearing in the case since. Justice Verma, the chairperson
of the NHRC during 2000-2002, retired in January 2003. Justice A.S. Anand
has taken over as the chairperson of the commission in mid-February 2003. Till
the end of February 2003, the Punjab government had filed its affidavits in 102
cases of "identified" cremations.

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