[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 120 (Thursday, September 5, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1536-E1537]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              MASS CREMATIONS OF SIKHS TO BE INVESTIGATED

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. PETER T. KING

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 5, 1996

  Mr. KING. Mr. Speaker, on August 2 India West reported that the mass 
cremations of Sikhs would be probed by India's Central Bureau of 
Investigation [CBI]. This is the investigation which led the Indian 
Supreme Court to describe the policy of mass cremation as worse than 
genocide.
  On September 6, 1995, a year ago this Friday, Jaswant Singh Khalra 
was kidnapped by the police from his home in Amritsar for publishing a 
report exposing these mass cremations. Here in America, reporters often 
write stories questioning official findings. Can you imagine the 
outrage if these journalists were picked up by the police and made to 
disappear? That is what happened to Mr. Khalra a year ago.
  The Reuters article in India West, which I am inserting into the 
Record, quotes a senior CBI official as saying that innocent Sikhs were 
killed in the 1980's and confirms that the Indian regime paid cash 
rewards for killing Sikhs. In 1994 the State Department reported that 
more than 41,000 of these bounties were paid in a 3-year period from 
1991 to 1993.
  As vice chairman of the International Operations and Human Rights 
Subcommittee, I will continue to monitor this investigation and I urge 
every Member of Congress to join me in this effort. The United States 
must be willing to do whatever we can to insure that the people of the 
world are free from persecution and are afforded their basic human 
rights.

                   [From Reuters, Fri., Aug. 2, 1996]

            CBI To Probe Cremation of 1,000 Bodies in Punjab

       Amritsar--The Punjab police said July 25 they would 
     cooperate in a federal investigation into charges they 
     secretly disposed of almost 1,000 ``unidentified'' bodies 
     between 1990 and 1995.
       The claim against the police was made in a public interest 
     litigation filed at the Supreme Court by the human rights 
     wing of the Akali Dal.
       The party has accused the police of torturing, killing and 
     then cremating Sikhs.
       ``Whatever record is asked for by the Central Bureau of 
     Investigation will be handed over without delay to the 
     concerned authorities,'' Deputy Inspector General of Police 
     B.S. Sandu told Reuters.
       ``We will provide all necessary help to the CBI to speed up 
     the investigations,'' he added.
       Earlier in the week, the CBI submitted a report to the 
     court which said 984 bodies had been cremated by the Punjab 
     police.
       ``The police confirmed the existence of these bodies, but 
     we have yet to ascertain who they are and how they got 
     killed,'' a senior CBI official said.
       He said it was normal for police to cremate bodies they 
     have been unable to identify.
       Senior Punjab police officers, who declined to be named, 
     told Reuters that innocents were killed during a violent Sikh 
     separatist insurgency in the 1980s--when rewards were offered 
     for the capture of guerrillas.
       Akali Dal lawmakers staged a sit-in on the floor of the Lok 
     Sabba in Delhi July 25 to protest against the government's 
     silence on the cremated bodies claim, the United News of 
     India agency said.
       The speaker of the house placated the protesters by 
     promising to look into the case and, if necessary, publish a 
     report on the probe's findings.
       An Akali Dal activist and a vocal critic of the police, 
     Jaswant Singh Khalra, was abducted from his house last 
     September and has been missing ever since.
       His disappearance has prompted reactions from human rights 
     organizations and even U.S. President Bill Clinton, who wrote 
     a letter to a radical Sikh leader expressing concern.

[[Page E1537]]

       The campaign for an independent Sikh state was fuelled in 
     1984 by Sikh outrage over the Indian Army's storming of 
     Amritsar's Golden Temple.
       In October that year, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who had 
     ordered the action against the temple, was assassinated by 
     her own Sikh bodyguards.
       After the installation of a state government headed by 
     Beant Singh, in 1992, the militancy withered away. However, 
     Singh was killed in a car bomb blast last year.

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