Political consensus on State terrorism and the mandate of 1992:

Over the next three years, government of India changed party-hands four times. However, these changes made no difference either to the government’s political approach in regard to the problem of unrest in Punjab or to the basic patterns of police functioning in the State. From the very beginning of the problem in Punjab, political elements within the government are known to have hobnobbed with one militant faction or the other with the view to isolate an immediate adversary in the ascendance.

Never was there any attempt to initiate discussions with the extremist groups on the basis of concrete issues which constitute the hard-core of Sikh discontent. All overtures and contacts were always essentially mercenary in nature, based on calculations of short-term paltry political advantages and negativating the prospects of a transparent deliberations on the merits of the issues involved.

In March 1988, the Indian parliament passed the 59th Amendment of the Constitution which enabled the central government to extend the President’s rule in the State beyond one year; to impose emergency on the ground of "internal disturbance" and to suspend Article 21 of the Constitution which guaranteed that no person shall be deprived of life and liberty except according to the procedure established by law. The Union government decided to bring about this amendment of the constitution to selectively take away the right to life for the people of Punjab, in spite of the fact that there were already in force special legislations, which not only conflicted with the elemental principles of due process, but also eliminated the existing legal safeguards of free and fair trial.

Apart from the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1987, and the Terrorist Affected Areas (Special Courts) Act, 1984, which we would discuss at length in the afternoon session, there were also other black laws like the National Security Act, 1980, as amended by the Act 24 of 1984 specifically with the reference to "the extremist and terrorist elements in the disturbed areas of Punjab and Chandigarh". The Act provided for detention without charge or trial for one year in all parts of India, and two years in Punjab. Also in force was the Armed Forces (Punjab and Chandigarh) Special Powers Act, which empowered the security forces to enter and search any premises, and to arrest any person without warrant. It also allowed the security forces to destroy any place on the suspicion of being a "terrorist hideout" and to shoot to kill a suspected terrorist with immunity from prosecution.

In November 1991, Punjab came under the Disturbed Areas Act, which gave the security forces extensive powers to search, detain and interrogate anyone without judicial warrants. Along with these steps, the central government announced that the elections to parliament and the State Assembly for Punjab would be held in the first quarter of 1992. A meeting of all the major Akali Sikh groups held on 4 January 1992, decided to boycott the elections. The government reported 28 per cent of polling. The turnout in the urban areas was between 25 and 40 per cent. In the rural constituencies it was between 5 and 20 per cent. The results declared on 20 February, returned the Congress with a two thirds majority in the State Assembly. Beant Singh, who had been dismissed from the Ministry of Darbara Singh in 1983 on the charge of having instigated a faked encounter, formed a Congress ministry as the new Chief Minister of Punjab.

Silencing the Punjab human rights groups

The state government projected its success at the hustings, a corollary of the poll-boycott by the main Akali groups, as the democratic mandate which it had received to stamp out the Sikh separatist militancy by whatever means. Several human rights groups in Punjab, although disorganised and faction-ridden, had been embarrassing the government by publicising police excesses. The government under Chief Minister Beant Singh decided to first silence these groups before confronting the larger problems of militancy in Punjab’s countryside.

Ram Singh Biling, a reporter with the Punjabi daily newspaper Ajit and the Secretary of Punjab Human Rights Organisation for his home district of Sangrur, was picked up and unceremoniously executed soon after the Congress government took office. Next was the turn of Ajit Singh Bains, retired judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and Chairman of the Punjab Human Rights Organization. His illegal arrest in April 1992 was not acknowledged for two days. Bains was manhandled, abused and publicly exhibited in handcuffs. Later, his arrest was formalised under TADA. The accusation was that Bains had taken part in a secret meeting of militant leaders, held at Anandpur on March 18, where they hatched a conspiracy to carry out terrorist actions.

An inquiry later ordered by the High Court of Punjab established that Ajit Singh Bains’ name did not figure in the original First Information Report about the "illegal meeting". However, the idea of arresting Bains was not to secure his conviction under the law, but to paralyse PHRO, and to demoralise other human rights groups with the example. Chief Minister Beant Singh told the State Legislative Assembly on April 6 that his government would not release Bains because his organisation was engaged in defending terrorists.

A human rights lawyer Jagwinder Singh was picked up from his house in Kapurthala by a group of uniformed policemen on 25 September 1992 evening. Although the Chief Minister and the Chief Secretary promised to intervene, Jagwinder Singh never returned.

On 18 May 1992, Amritsar police picked up Param Satinderjit Singh, a student of Guru Nanak Dev University, from the university campus. He was forced to identify suspected sympathisers of the separatist cause within the university, who were also picked up. The police brought Param Satinderjit Singh to the university campus several times for this purpose. The university students held a demonstration to protest against the abduction, and his father went on a hunger strike. But Param Satinderjit Singh was not released. There was no trace of him thereafter.

Punjab government kept up the pressure on the PHRO by arresting Malwinder Singh Malli, General Secretary of the organisation, in August 1992. Malli was also the editor of "Paigam", a vernacular journal affiliated with a Marxist-Leninist group, whose work in the field had led to several exhaustive reports on police atrocities. Elimination of Ram Singh Biling and Jagwinder Singh, and arrests of Ajit Singh Bains and Malwinder Singh Malli effectively paralysed the regional human rights groups. Several prominent members of the PHRO either took temporary asylum in foreign countries, or went into hibernation. Those who remained active were suppressed or silenced. Now the security forces could give undivided attention to eliminate the ring-leaders of the separatist militancy.

The war without a quarter

The Sikhs of Punjab had never clearly understood the rationale of the militants’ objectives. These groups in their hay-days had generally relied on vacuous sympathies to find hideouts and other forms of support to keep up their operations. With the rural Sikhs totally dismayed at the state of affairs, militants were now helpless against the security forces who began to hunt them down like the game of prey.

Thus, within six months of assuming office the government of Beant Singh was able to break the backbone of the Sikh militant movement. Main leaders of guerrilla outfits were either killed, or compelled to flee the scene. Hundreds of them also surrendered. Thousands of others suffered torture in custody, long periods of illegal imprisonment and myriad other forms of physical and psychological torment. I have exhaustively documented the historical context of the Sikh separatist violence, its political and psychological aspects and its irrationality in my second book on Punjab, published by Ajanta Books International in 1997 under the title: "The Sikh Unrest and the Indian State: Politics, Personalities and Historical retrospective."