The DK Sankaran Committee, recently organized to provide relief to survivors of the 1984 pogroms of Sikhs, held its first meeting:
The issue of giving relief to the Sikhs, who left their homes in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh to go to Punjab, was raised by the representatives from Punjab who attended the first […]
A delegation of the Punjab State Human Rights Commission stated that 80% of the complaints received by the Commission concern police abuses:
Justice Anand [the Chairperson] said Punjab police personnel were the main violators of human rights in the state and should urgently amend themselves.
‘‘The regular occurrence of incident of custodial violence, rape and deaths, apart from […]
The Delhi police claim to have registered 636 cases regarding the 1984 pogroms of Sikhs, and to have secured convictions in 37 cases. These low conviction rates are another indication of impunity for the perpetrators of the 1984 massacre of Sikhs.
ENSAAF’s report Twenty Years of Impunity: The November 1984 Pogroms of Sikhs in India reveals […]
More than twenty years after Operation Bluestar and the looting of the Sikh Reference Library by the Indian Army, historic manuscripts taken by the army still have not been returned.
The Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) has often raised this issue in the past twenty years, passing a resolution every year and writing to the […]
85-year old Gurdev Singh has spent 12.5 years in jail in Punjab, India under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA). TADA, enacted in May 1985, comprised part of the laws instituted during the police counter-insurgency campaign in Punjab. This act lapsed in 1995, but the Indian government continues to detain people under TADA, for offences […]
The prosecution’s behavior in a case against Sajjan Kumar, arising from the 1984 Sikh massacres, gives insight into what will happen in any future prosecutions initiated by the government in fulfillment of its recent promises regarding the Nanavati Report.
The Delhi High Court was forced to adjourn a hearing today because the prosecuting authority was not […]
In Moral Indifference as the form of modern evil, Siddharth Varadarajan discusses the indifference of then-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi towards the massacres, and how such indifference has led to an entrenched and institutionalized ”riot system” that “any ruling party anywhere in the country can use [] with impunity.” Varadarajan criticizes the Nanavati report for describing the effects of the organized […]
Retired Supreme Court justice Ranganath Misra headed the first Commission of Inquiry into the November 1984 massacres of Sikhs. He was appointed in April 1985. Misra held a closed door inquiry, prohibiting news coverage of his proceedings. In a recent interview with an Indian Express reporter, Misra defends his whitewashing of the massacres and criticizes Nanavati […]
The government has constituted two committees to inquire into issues relating to relief and rehabilitation for the survivors of the November 1984 massacres of Sikhs. One Committee, led by Special Secretary in the Home Ministry KP Singh, will inquire into the “adequacy and uniformity” of compensation. It includes the Secretaries in charge of relief in […]
In an ironic turn of events, a Sikh Prime Minister apologized to the Sikh community for the 1984 massacres of Sikhs. In his speech, however, he still maintained that the massacres were not organized by senior political and police officials, terming them “riots,” impying violence on both sides. The Prime Minister alternatively referred to the […]