Jaswant Singh Khalra was a prominent Sikh human rights activist. He was abducted by Punjab Police on 6th September 1995, detained, tortured and murdered in late October 1995. Khalra was investigating extra-judicial killings of Sikh by the Punjab Police. Khalra was invited abroad to provide evidence of the murders of Sikhs. He presented estimates: 25,000 illegally cremated; 6,000 from Amritsar district alone.
His documentation exposed an ecosystem of impunity and contextualized the individual asylum cases that had created the Sikh diaspora population in the West since 1984. Dal Khalsa spokesperson Kanwar Pal Singh said the voice of the S Khalra was silenced forever because he became the voice of the voiceless.
He said, the contribution and sacrifice of Khalra was unique as he was struggling to get justice for the disappeared persons who were illegally abducted, tortured, eliminated and cremated as unidentified bodies by the Punjab police and other security forces.
Supreme Court first took notice of the disappearances in Punjab on 15 November 1995, in the wake of the abduction and murder of Jaswant Singh Khalra. Khalra had charged Punjab police with clandestinely cremating 2,097 dead bodies in Amritsar, Tarn Taran and Majitha areas.
SC directed CBI to inquire into Khalra’s abduction and the facts of Khalra’s claims of secret cremations by the police.
Subsequently, the CBI filed charge sheets in 44 cases and also charged nine police personnel with Khalra’s
abduction and murder. Six of these people were later given life sentences. The trial is still pending in most of these cases due to legal loopholes.
Human rights activists continue to work on the cases of those innocents who were disappeared by the Punjab Police despite the fact that the records of cremation grounds in otherdistricts of Punjab which Khalra had not yet studied have now been sealed and are inaccessible.
In 2011, World Sikh Organization and Human Rights Law Network in Delhi India launched ‘Khalra Centre for Human Rights Defenders’ to protect those heroes who like S Khalra risk their lives to speak out against injustice.
Chandigarhbased NGO Punjab Documentation and Advocacy Project (PDAP) released a report in 2017, claiming to have identified 8,257 persons who disappeared from 1980 to 1995 from all across the state and were also cremated as unidentified and unclaimed bodies
The movie Honey Trehan’s feature “Punjab ‘95”, based on the life of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, also delves into the life of Khalra, known for his efforts against alleged fake encounters of Sikh youths by the Punjab Police during militancy has been removed from the world premiere in the Gala Presentations section on September 11, website does not mention the biographical drama in its line-up anymore. The biopic has been under the radar ever since it was announced.
The extrajudicial executions, custodial deaths, disappearances and widespread torture perpetrated by the Punjab Police in the name of national security are clear violations of international human rights law.
These violations are not the result of a few rogue police officers fighting terrorism, but symptoms of a deeply embedded system indifferent to human life and the rule of law.