Here are some highlights from the past year:

In October 2007, Ensaaf and Human Rights Watch released a joint report, video testimonials, and photo essay. The report, Protecting the Killers, A Policy of Impunity in Punjab, India, examines the challenges faced by victims and their relatives in pursuing legal avenues for accountability for the human rights abuses perpetrated by security forces. The report describes the near total failure of India’s judicial and state institutions to provide justice for victims’ families.

April 2008 marked the four year anniversary of Ensaaf. Some highlights in legal advocacy over the past 4 years include providing litigation support in the Punjab mass cremations case and the cases regarding the murder of human rights defender Jaswant Singh Khalra (the criminal case against six police officers and the High Court case filed against former police chief KPS Gill). All of this and more was reported in the latest newsletter by Ensaaf.

On November 21, 2007, Ensaaf met with the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) in Geneva, Switzerland, to present general allegations (pdf) against India for its role in perpetrating enforced disappearances in Punjab. The allegations, as well as 32 individual cases jointly submitted by Ensaaf, REDRESS, and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, are currently under consideration by the Working Group and were transmitted to the government of India in April.

In its December newsletter, Ensaaf reported how a killer of activist Jaswant Singh Khalra has been scheming his way out of jail, despite receiving a life sentence. As of December, Jaspal Singh had been released from jail 36 times, and had also received 7 weeks of parole. Read more about the convictions of the police officers in the Khalra murder case.

In February 2007, Ensaaf and Human Rights watch published an op-ed in The Asian Age reported that in February 2007, discussing the cost of ignoring human rights violations as Punjabi citizens went to the polls to elect a new government.

The March 2007 issue of our quarterly newsletter, the Ensaaf DISPATCH (pdf), is now available.

Ensaaf has launched a new website that makes it even easier to contribute to the movement for truth and justice for victims of gross human rights violations in Punjab, India. Donors can now go to www.ensaaf.org and click on the Make a Donation button to sign up for secure recurring donations. As little as $10 a month will make a significant contribution to document human rights violations, advance key legal cases, and empower survivors to advocate for their rights. By supporting Ensaaf, you are investing in a sound strategy that will end impunity and achieve justice, ensuring a future based on the rule of law.

Ensaaf has released the September 2006 issue of its quarterly
newsletter, the Ensaaf DISPATCH, available at:
http://www.ensaaf.org/dispatch-sep06.pdf

This DISPATCH includes the following articles:

* Staff Update: Welcome to our New Program Associate, Jasmine Marwaha
* Khalra’s Last International Speech Highlights Mass Crimes of KPS Gill
* High Court Case Filed Against Former Police Chief KPS Gill
* National Human Rights Commission Ends Hearings in Punjab Mass
Cremations Case
* New York City Bar Association Releases Report Condemning India’s
Security Laws
* Thanks to Our Summer Interns
* Ensaaf in the News

On September 25, 2006, the Committee on International Human Rights of the New York City Bar Association released a report, Anti-Terrorism and Security Laws in India, calling on the Indian government to limit its application of anti-terrorism laws. The 135-page report, based on extensive research and a two-week trip to India, provides a thorough analysis of the use and effectiveness of anti-terrorism laws in India, and the need for reform of the Indian police and criminal justice system in order to prevent further human rights violations. Anil Kalhan, Visiting Assistant Professor at Fordham University School of Law, serves as chairman of the committee’s India project. During their two week trip, project participants met with attorneys, government officials, detainees and their families, scholars, and human rights defenders throughout India.

The report challenges the effectiveness of India’s anti-terrorism and security laws, stating that terrorism has persisted despite these laws and few terrorists have been successfully prosecuted. Instead, these laws have facilitated human rights violations, such as arbitrary and selective enforcement against lower caste and minority communities; prolonged detention without trial; prosecution of ordinary crimes as terrorism-related offences; custodial abuse and torture; and violations of the freedoms of speech and association. The report asserts:

Ensaaf has released the June 2006 issue of its quarterly newsletter, the Ensaaf DISPATCH, available at:
http://www.ensaaf.org/dispatch-june06.pdf

This DISPATCH includes the following articles:

* US Extradites Sikh Activist Kulvir Singh Barapind
* The Disappearance of Rights Attorney S.S. Bhatti
* International Groups Call for the Prosecution of K.P.S. Gill for
Murdering J.S. Khalra
* UN Human Rights Council Approves Disappearance Treaty: Will India
Comply?
* Ensaaf Welcomes its Advisory Council
* Ensaaf Founders Win Echoing Green Award

ENSAAF has released the March 2006 issue of its quarterly Dispatch, available at: 

The US Department of State has released its 2005 Country Report on Human Rights Practices for India. In the report, the Department of State cites numerous human rights abuses that occur in India, including: extrajudicial killings, torture and rape by police and security forces, and prolonged detention. It also states its findings regarding developments in Punjab human rights cases in the last year.

The Department of State reports that Indian police officials continue to routinely commit human rights violations: “Police routinely resorted to arbitrary and incommunicado detention, denied detainees access to lawyers and medical attention, and used torture or ill treatment to extract confessions.” These abuses often go unpunished, despite India’s numerous laws protecting human rights.

The lack of firm accountability permeated the government and security forces, creating an atmosphere in which human rights violations often went unpunished. Although the country has numerous laws protecting human rights, enforcement was lax and convictions were rare….Officers at all levels acted with relative impunity and were rarely held accountable for illegal actions. When an officer was found guilty of a crime, the most common punishment was transfer to a different position or post.

During the year, police committed extrajudicial killings by the use of staged encounter killings, and deaths in custody were common. According to the Department of State, the officers who committed these killings and other human rights abuses “generally enjoyed de facto impunity.” The authorities often delayed prosecutions in custodial death cases, and according to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), state governments had not investigated at least 3,575 previous custodial death cases. The NHRC also reported that by the year’s end, no state had fully complied with its 1993 directive to report all deaths in police and judicial custody. The NHRC regards failure to report as tantamount to cover-up. When the courts awarded compensation to relatives in cases of custodial killings, the relatives often received no compensation, or had to pay bribes to receive it.

Custodial torture remained a severe problem, according to human rights groups cited by the report; the report states that evidence of torture was often found on the bodies of deceased detainees. Police often torture detainees for money or to force confessions, and usually following an illegal and arbitrary arrest. Custodial abuse in the form of rape also appeared to be more common than indicated by NHRC figures. Again, the government often failed to hold the guilty officers accountable for custodial abuse.

The report also states that prison conditions in India were “life-threatening” and that they did not meet international standards. Further, most detainees spent prolonged periods in prison while awaiting trial; thousands more remain in detention without charge.

Due to persistent inefficiencies in the judicial system, there were numerous instances in which detainees spent more time in jail under pretrial detention than they would have if found guilty and sentenced to the longest possible term.

The NHRC reported in 2004 that 75 percent of the country’s inmates were in pretrial detention.

The Department of State report also cited cases of custodial abuse involving the Punjab police. The Department of State reports that in 2004, the Punjab Police received 17,000 complaints, including 6,261 from the Punjab State Human Rights Commission.

The report noted developments in the case of Jaswant Singh Khalra, the human rights activist who was abducted, tortured in illegal detention, and murdered by Punjab police after he exposed the disappearances and killings of thousands of Sikhs in Punjab. In March, prosecution lawyer Brinjinder Singh Sodhi said that a police officer threatened him; however, no action was taken against the police official. On November 18, ten years after Khalra’s killing, police officers Jaspal Singh and Amarjit Singh were found guilty of murdering Khalra and destroying evidence related to the case (among other crimes), and were sentenced to life imprisonment. The court found four other officers guilty of kidnapping with the intent to murder and sentenced them to seven years imprisonment. (Visit ENSAAF to read the order or a summary of the order.)

The report also states that the government has failed to take action against the hundreds of police and security officials who committed grave human rights abuses during the 1984-1994 counterinsurgency in Punjab. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) claimed to be pursuing charges against dozens of police officers implicated in these faked encounter killings and secret cremations.

NGOs and Human Rights activists alleged that police in Amritsar, Majitha, and Tarn Taran districts secretly disposed of approximately two thousand bodies of suspected Sikh insurgents they had murdered. Security forces abducted, extrajudicially executed, and cremated the alleged insurgents without the knowledge or consent of their families during the height of Sikh insurgency in Punjab.

Regarding the mass illegal cremations case in Punjab, the report stated:

The NHRC continued to investigate 2,097 cases of illegal murder/cremation that occurred between 1984 and the early 1990s….The NHRC has not released its findings, and no significant progress was made in bringing to justice those responsible for the killings. Families of victims petitioned the NHRC for redress, and a small percentage received a response in July 2004.

The Committee for Coordination on Disappearances in Punjab (CCDP), a Punjab-based human rights organization, also did not receive an NHRC response to its report documenting 672 disappearance cases. These cases are part of the Punjab mass cremations case proceeding before the NHRC.

The Nanavati commission investigating the 1984 anti-Sikh pogroms released its report in August 2005. The government has also set up two committees to provide compensation. Although the commission report indicted several prominent Congress party leaders for complicity in the massacres, no formal punishment has resulted. Similarly, according to the report, only one policeman was convicted for committing atrocities during the pogroms even though the commission report highlighted the deliberate lack of action on the part of law enforcement to prevent the killings. ENSAAF’s blog (1, 2, 3) highlights deficiencies of the Nanavati Commission report and the government’s Action Taken Report, not discussed in the State Department’s country report.

Human Rights Watch has released its annual report examining human rights developments in more than 70 countries during 2005.

According to the report, the human rights situation has worsened across South Asia, as Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal all violated human rights while attempting to put down rebellions.

Although the report commented that the Indian government set up a committee to review the broad powers granted to army and paramilitary forces, it criticized the government for creating legislation to protect police and security forces from prosecution. This legal protection allows the torture of suspects.

“Indian military, paramilitary and police forces have engaged in serious human rights abuses in conflict zones, and yet there have been no attempts at transparent investigations or prosecutions of those responsible,” the report says.

The impunity of Indian security forces is apparent in the Punjab mass illegal cremations case. Although the Central Bureau of Investigation reported thousands of illegal creamtions, and the Supreme Court designated the National Human Rights Commission as its body to investigate this crime, the Punjab government has neither admitted wrongdoing, nor prosecuted any security officers for their role in the disapperances and extrajudicial executions leading to the illegal creamtions.

Security forces in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh were also criticized for serious human rights violations such as extrajudicial executions, arbitrary detentions, limited access to prisoners, and custodial torture.

The Tribune reports that the Punjab police wrongfully confined Sikh author Ajmer Singh for over eighteen hours on January 6.

Police officers arrived at Ajmer Singh’s residence around 9pm to arrest him on charges dating back to 1970 that the state government had dropped in 2001. The police officers showed no search or arrest warrants.

Recalling the Thursday night terror, Singh said Sub Inspector Amanjot Singh of the Crime Branch arrived at his house around 9 on Thursday night, armed with a box of sweets and an invite. But before he could figure out the invite, Ajmer said four more persons slipped in quietly and told him that he was being arrested for involvement in a car accident. ‘‘All of them were in plain clothes and I was not shown any search or arrest warrants,’’ he said.

The officers then ransacked his room, confiscating books and papers. During Ajmer Singh’s detention, the police refused to acknowledge his detention or reveal his whereabouts to his family and lawyer.

By the time he reached the police station, Singh said the cops had ransacked his room and picked up “each and every scrap of paper. My first book was against the state, and it seems they were interested in finding out more about my writings.”

Upon learning of Ajmer Singh’s detention, ENSAAF issued an urgent petition to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. When Ajmer Singh’s lawyer, Navkiran Singh, learned that the Sector 11 Crime Branch police were detaining him, he held a press conference announcing the information. The police were forced to acknowledge the detention and bring Ajmer Singh before a magistrate within 24 hours, as required by law. Since there was no case against Ajmer Singh, the magistrate ordered the police to release him.

Ajmer Singh’s lawyer has stated that a police probe is necessary, and is planning to file a suit for damages.