[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 142 (Wednesday, September 13, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1768]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST ABDUCTED IN INDIA

                                 ______


                            HON. DAN BURTON

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, September 13, 1995
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, once again the Indian Government 
has shown its blatant disrespect for basic human rights. On September 
6, 1995, Mr. Jaswant Singh Khalra, the general secretary of the Human 
Rights Wing [Shiromani Akali Dal] was washing his car in front of his 
house in Amritsar, Punjab, when he was taken away by police in a van. 
The police have refused to reveal Mr. Khalra's whereabouts. He has not 
been brought before a magistrate. Amnesty International has expressed 
fear that he may be tortured.
  Mr. Khalra had been instrumental in exposing the fact that 25,000 
Sikhs have been cremated in Punjab, Khalistan, and then listed as 
unidentified while their families continue to await any word about 
them. Some of my colleagues and I have brought these cremations to the 
attention of this House previously. They are being done to destroy 
evidence of a campaign of extrajudicial killings in Punjab.
  The superintendent of police in the Tarn Taran district of Punjab, 
Khalistan, has been quoted as saying ``We have made 25,000 disappear. 
It is easy to make one more disappear.'' According to Amnesty 
International, this threat was made shortly after Mr. Khalra filed a 
petition in court on behalf of the cremated Sikhs. This is not an idle 
threat. The Indian regime is quite capable of making Mr. Khalra 
disappear without a trace.
  Mr. Khalra's ``disappearance'' appears to be part of a pattern of 
increased repression instituted by the Indian Government in the wake of 
the assassination of Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh. According to 
newspaper reports and Sikh leader Simranjit Singh Mann, who has himself 
been a victim of the regime's repression, both the central government 
and the state government of Punjab have resorted to mass arrests in the 
wake of the assassination. But Mr. Mann warned that this repression 
will be counterproductive, and he is correct. Another wave of massive 
human rights violations against the Sikh people will only produce more 
suffering and more hatred.
  Amnesty International has issued an urgent action bulletin seeking an 
independent and impartial inquiry to establish Mr. Khalra's whereabouts 
and assurances that, if in police custody, he be allowed immediate 
access to lawyers and relatives and be promptly brought before a 
magistrate. If India is the democracy it claims to be, these actions 
are the least the regime can do.
  Since 1984, the Indian regime has reportedly killed more than 120,000 
Sikhs. In addition, the regime has killed over 150,000 Christians in 
Nagaland since 1947, over 43,000 Kashmiri Muslims since 1988, tens of 
thousands of Assamese, Manipuris, and others, and thousands of Dalits, 
or black untouchables. The State Department reported in its country 
report for 1994 that between 1991 and 1993, the regime paid over 41,000 
cash bounties to police officers for killing Sikhs. Mr. Khalra's 
disappearance is part of a pattern of repression that belies India's 
claim to be a democracy.
  In the face of this kind of repression, leaders of the Sikh Nation 
declared independence on October 7, 1987, claiming a separate, 
sovereign country of Khalistan. India's brutal occupation of Khalistan 
has only led to continued bloodshed and repression. That serves 
nobody's interest. Mr. Khalra's disappearance demonstrates yet again 
that the Indian Government has not done anything to bring the human 
rights abuses to a stop. Only when the repression and bloodshed end can 
peace, prosperity, and stability be restored to the Indian 
subcontinent. I urge the Indian regime to release Jaswant Singh Khalra 
and all other political prisoners.


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