Some of the photos of disappeared persons during militancy period in Punjab ( Photo : Baljit Balli )
Carrying forward mission of Jaswant Khalra, says UK Barrister Bains
Over 8000 persons “disappeared” in 15 years in Punjab, NGO to move Supreme Court
By Baljit Balli
Chandigarh, December 2, 2017: The NGO Punjab Documentation and Advocacy Project (PDAP) on Saturday made sensational claim of having documented 8257 cases of “disappearances” during the period between 1980 and 1995 in Punjab.
The NGO will take the matter to the Supreme Court, announced its head Satnam Singh Bains, a UK-based Barrister, at a news conference here on Saturday.
With this, the issue of “disappeared” persons during the days of extremist violence in Punjab allegedly in fake encounters has come into focus again.
The NGO claimed it carried out a detailed documentation of such cases of alleged extra-judicial killings during 7-year long probe. Its report is based on study of about 87,000 documents, conversations with aggrieved families and eyewitness accounts collected from 22 districts of the state.
Their petition to be filed in the Supreme Court of India will be based on findings of their report, said Bains who claimed their organization to be a non-political one dealing with human rights violations.
Total 2097 cases of alleged disappearances documented previously by Jaswant Singh Khalra had reached the National Human Right Commission (NHRC). Action was taken in 1527 cases and closed after paying some compensation to the aggrieved kin. All these cases were reported from Amritsar district alone, said Bains no responsibility was fixed in these cases by the NHRC.
The NGO also said it would approach the state government to announce immediate relief to the aggrieved families and certify deaths of the “disappeared” persons.
National Convener of People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Kavita Srivastava, who was also present, demanded setting up of a judicial commission headed by a retired SC judge to probe the matter. Justice Suresh, the retired judge of Bombay High Court said the aggrieved families have every right to know the reasons behind these human rights violations.
Paramjit Kaur, the present chief of Khalra Mission and wife of late Jaswant Singh Khalra PDAP members Mohinder Singh Randhawa, Jagjit Singh Bajwa, Jasbir Singh Mandiala and advocate Jagjit Singh were also present.
Click at the pdf file attached to read more details.