Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 1995 - India, 1 January 1995, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a9f023.html [accessed 17 September 2023]
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Thousands of political prisoners were held without charge or trial. Torture and ill-treatment of detainees were routine, resulting in hundreds of deaths in police and military custody. Scores of political detainees "disappeared". Hundreds of people were reported to have been extrajudicially executed by the security forces. At least two people were judicially executed. Armed opposition or separatist groups committed numerous abuses, including deliberate killings of civilians and hostage-taking. The government continued to face violent political opposition in several states, including Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Assam and other northeastern states. Jammu and Kashmir remained under direct rule by central government. No legal reforms were implemented to safeguard detainees, although the government announced in May that it was considering a legal amendment that would require judicial inquiries into all deaths in custody. The amendment had not been passed by the end of the year. Special legislation such as the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act and the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) remained in force. The TADA, which was in force in 22 of India's 25 states, grants the security forces wide powers of arrest and detention without trial under vague and imprecise provisions. Minimum legal safeguards for fair trial do not apply to those tried under tada. The Supreme Court ruled in March that TADA was constitutional, but confirmed that police had frequently abused the Act in order to circumvent ordinary legal safeguards. The Minister for Internal Security admitted in August that TADA "had been misused extensively against Muslims". The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), established in 1993 (see Amnesty International Report 1994), pursued, apparently with determination, many complaints of human rights violations in various states. However, human rights groups complained that they were not informed about the outcome of invest-igations into specific complaints they submitted to the Commission. Its powers to investigate and act upon complaints of human rights violations from Jammu and Kashmir remained extremely limited. In August Andhra Pradesh police reportedly tried to prevent members of the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee from testifying before the Commission. Thousands of political prisoners, including prisoners of conscience, were held without charge or trial under various special laws. Many were held on suspicion of committing ordinary criminal offences but others were clearly held for political reasons. Swaran Kaur and her sister were arrested by police in Punjab in April as they travelled to meet members of the NHRC. They were released only after the NHRC Chairman intervened on their behalf. Swaran Kaur told the Commission that she and members of her family had been tortured and harassed by police after her husband was killed in 1992 and that seven relatives, including her two-year-old child, were in police custody. Among those arrested during the year under TADA was Ajit Kumar Bhuyan, a journalist who had been arrested on several previous occasions because of his human rights activities. He was arrested at his home in Assam on 5 July, and for three days police refused to disclose his whereabouts. He was released on bail on 27 September. Hundreds of suspected political activists were detained without charge or trial under the National Security Act and, in Jammu and Kashmir, the Public Safety Act. In Jammu and Kashmir, two political leaders were rearrested under the Public Safety Act in May, immediately after the Supreme Court had ordered their release. Sayed Ali Shah Geelani and Abdul Gani Lone, both prisoners of conscience held without charge since October 1993, were released on 30 September. Shabir Shah, another prisoner of conscience, first held under the Public Safety Act and then under TADA, was released in October, having spent five years in detention without trial. A considerable number of children were held under the Public Safety Act, including 15-year-old Mushtaq Ahmad Wani, a student detained since June 1993. Torture of detainees in police and military custody remained endemic. Criminal suspects and political detainees were routinely tortured to extract information and "confessions". Torture methods most often cited were beatings and, less frequently, suspension by the wrists or ankles, electric shocks and rape. In Jammu and Kashmir people were suspended upside-down, given electric shocks or burned, leaving some victims disabled for life. Most torture victims came from underprivileged sections of society, particularly the scheduled castes and tribes. For example, four men, all members of the scheduled castes, were arrested in Ahmedabad district, Uttar Pradesh, on 14 August. All said they were beaten and one, Amrut Parmar, stated that he had been subjected to electric shocks. A medical report supported their allegations. No action was known to have been taken against the officers responsible. In Jammu and Kashmir, deaths in custody as a result of torture or shooting reached extraordinary levels, sometimes being reported daily. During the year Amnesty International compiled a record of 706 such deaths reported between January 1990 and December 1994, 130 of them since January 1994. In other Indian states, at least 60 people died in custody in 1994, allegedly as a result of torture or shooting. Convictions of those responsible for these human rights violations were extremely rare. In Jammu and Kashmir none of the perpetrators was brought to justice. In January a basket maker named Udayan from Palakkad district in Kerala was taken into custody, allegedly for carrying counterfeit money. He told his brothers he had been stripped and brutally tortured during the night. He died later that day. The police claimed that he hanged himself but an investigation by local human rights groups disputed this. After protests over his case, 32 people were arrested and 3,000 were charged with rioting and causing the death of a police officer who collapsed and died during a protest. The Chief Minister of Kerala agreed to set up an inquiry, but not an independent judicial inquiry. In states other than Jammu and Kashmir, some courts convicted police responsible for custodial deaths reportedly committed several years ago and ordered compensation to be paid. On 16 April a sessions judge in Andhra Pradesh sentenced five policemen to prison sentences of between three and 10 years for beating T. Muralidharan to death in 1986. In May the Rajasthan High Court ordered that a commission be set up to establish the number of people who had died in custody in the state between 1990 and 1992 and that their families receive financial relief. Senior police officials frequently participated in covering up torture and obstructing the rare cases where prosecu-tions of police were initiated. Archana Guha, a headmistress who was tortured in detention in 1974, was still pursuing her case in 1994, 16 years after court pro-ceedings began. In February the Supreme Court expressed concern at the way police officers had escaped justice by repeatedly delaying proceedings. In August a Criminal Investigation Department (CID) inquiry found evidence against 13 Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) personnel for killing 17 people in 1987 after taking them into custody dur-ing Hindu-Muslim riots in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh (see Amnesty International Report 1988). The PAC allegedly took them to a deserted spot, shot them and dumped their bodies in a canal. The state government was not known to have begun legal proceedings against the PAC personnel. Scores of political detainees "disappeared" during the year. Most were young men suspected of having links with armed secessionist groups. Many were detained solely because they lived in areas where armed groups were active. Few "disappearances" were clarified. Sometimes officials eventually admitted that an arrest had been made, only to claim later that the "disappeared" person had "escaped" or was killed in an "encounter". In Jammu and Kashmir the army and paramilitary forces were responsible for scores of "disappearances". For example, Mohammad Maqbool Dass was picked up by soldiers from his home on 9 April and has not been seen since. The army ignored requests by the district's Deputy Commissioner for relatives to have access to him. In Punjab, most "disappearances" were carried out by the police. For example, Sukhwinder Singh Bhatti, a lawyer who had defended Sikh men held on political grounds, was abducted in May by armed men in plain clothes who were believed to be police. In mid-June the Punjab and Haryana High Court ordered a CID inquiry into his "disappearance" to report within three months, which it failed to do. The government denied that the police were responsible. Hundreds of people were reported to have been extrajudicially executed by security forces. Five young men, mem-bers of the All Assam Students Union, were reportedly shot dead by the army at Dibru-Saikowa game sanctuary. Their bullet-ridden bodies were handed over to police on 23 February, reportedly bearing marks of torture including burns and bruises. The security forces claimed they had been killed in an "encounter", but two released detainees said all five had been tortured then shot. A magisterial inquiry was ordered but had not reported by the end of 1994. Extrajudicial executions in Jammu and Kashmir continued throughout the year. At least nine people travelling on a bus in Bandipore were killed by members of the Border Security Force (BSF) on 6 January. Witnesses said that the shootings were unprovoked. In August Abdul Rashid Dar was shot dead at point-blank range after being dragged out of his house in Batamaloo by members of the BSF. He was killed in front of his family. The police authorities apparently took no action in this case. In Bombay, the judicial investigation continued into killings during intercommunal riots in December 1992 and January 1993, including several alleged extrajudicial executions (see Amnesty International Report 1993). In Arunachal Pradesh members of the Chakma and Hajong communities, who are long-term settlers, apparently received little state protection from attacks by civilians calling for the expulsion of foreigners. Amnesty International appealed for their safety in September. The neighbouring state of Assam issued "shoot at sight" orders against any non-nationals entering the state. At least two people were judicially executed in Rajasthan and Orissa. Armed opposition groups committed grave human rights abuses, including hostage-taking, torture and deliberate and arbitrary killings. The victims included politicians and suspected informers. For example, in Jammu and Kashmir, 10 Congressmen were reportedly abducted in Srinagar in mid-June by the Islamic Front. Five were released, but the fate of the other five was not known. Pankaj Kumar Sinha, a former legislator of the Congress Party, was held captive by an armed group, Al-Umar Mujahideen, for a year before being released in June. In the northeast, civilians including Muslim immigrants were targeted for abuses by armed opposition groups. In Andhra Pradesh, members of the Naxalite People's War Group tortured and killed suspected police informers. Amnesty International called on the government to release prisoners of conscience and to ensure that all other political prisoners were brought to trial promptly and fairly, or released; to investigate all allegations of torture and deaths in custody and to bring to justice those responsible; and to implement safeguards against torture. Amnesty International welcomed the government's decision to consider requiring judicial inquiries into all deaths in custody and urged all political parties to support such a reform. Amnesty International appealed for the commutation of death sentences and the abolition of the death penalty. In January Amnesty International made its first visit for 14 years to Maharashtra state to conduct research. The delegation visited the state capital, Bombay, and met senior government and police officials, as well as victims of human rights viola-tions, lawyers and human rights groups. The delegation also met senior Indian Government officials, who said that Amnesty International's repeated request for permission to visit Jammu and Kashmir was still under consideration. In May Amnesty International submitted a memorandum to the government detailing widespread unacknowledged detentions, frequent beatings and other torture of suspects, and broad police powers to use lethal force. The memorandum contained 15 recommendations to remedy the situation. In August Amnesty International received a response from the government which dismissed nearly all the recommendations. In March Amnesty International published a report, India: Reports of rape in 1993, and in June another entitled India: Deaths in custody in 1993. In August Amnesty International publicly challenged the government to respond seriously to more than 200 cases of "disappearance" in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab, following a disappointing government response to a report issued by Amnesty International in 1993 (see Amnesty International Report 1994). In November Amnesty International published India: The Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act: The lack of "scrupulous care", which expressed concern that the act had been grossly abused and that several provisions contravened international human rights standards. Amnesty International appealed to armed opposition groups to stop human rights abuses. In June it publicly urged them to release all hostages held in Jammu and Kashmir, and rejected a request by one of the groups, Harkatul Ansar, for a meeting in Pakistan. Amnesty International deplored the taking of hostages as a blatant violation of humanitarian law, and said it would never play a part in negotiations for releases. UN Special Rapporteurs on torture and extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions were not invited to visit Jammu and Kashmir as they requested.
