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Punjab's Cremation Grounds,
1984-1994
SHRG, December 1997
"Worse that Genocide" - Justice Kuldip
Singh, Supreme Court of India
Executive Summary
This is an Investigation of Jaspal Singh Dhillon and Jaswant Singh Khalra into the disappearances of Sikhs between 1984 and 1995.
Since the early 1980s there has been a great deal of concern expressed by human rights groups, lawyers and families as to the fate of those who 'disappear' in Punjab.
Over the last two decades the High Court of Punjab and Haryana has received an alarmingly high number of habeas corpus petitions seeking intervention of the Court in ascertaining the whereabouts of those who were taken into custody by the security forces and the police operating in the region. The Punjab authorities decline any knowledge of the arrest of those people. Their families still do not know what happened to their loved ones. Yet, prevented from performing last rites, a family's hope lives on.
Strong evidence points to the 'disappearance' of thousands of Sikhs in Punjab. The Human Rights and Democracy Forum that was set up to investigate those 'disappearances' found that in just three cremation grounds in the area of Amritsar in Punjab, over 3,000 bodies had been cremated by the police as unclaimed between 1984 and the end of 1994. It is now known that over fifty cremation grounds in Punjab have been used regularly by police to cremate bodies.
Starting with a background of the conflict in Punjab and the history of state repression, this report describes the investigation into the mass cremation of those executed by police. It also presents the scope and findings of the enquiry, the practices and extent of secret cremations and finally the repressive state response to the investigation and the kidnap and 'disappearance' of one of its main investigators, Mr Jaswant Singh Khalra.
Note: SHRG has consistently documented
accounts of the abrogation of human rights norms in Punjab and continues
to present details of hundreds of cases to the UN Working Group on Involuntary
Disappearances. SHRG believes that a full investigation on human rights
abuses in the state of Punjab for the past twenty years should be undertaken
immediately and all responsible brought to trial.
