India: The return to India and subsequent arrest of Dr. Sohan Singh of the (Second) Panthic Committee in 1993

According to a number of reports Dr. Sohan Singh of the Panthic Committee was arrested in November 1993 (New York Times 5 Nov. 1993; AFP 4 Nov. 1993; India Today 30 Nov. 1993, 35; Xinhua 5 Nov. 1993). According to the New York Times:

After the arrest of a Sikh guerrilla leader, the Indian Government asserted today that it had broken the backbone of the fight for independence in Punjab. The police said Sohan Singh, 79, was caught Wednesday. 

Dr. Singh was head of the Panthic Committee, or committee of five, that directed the most active Sikh guerrilla organizations in recent years. He was the State Health Director until 1974 and is credited with modernizing public health and setting up over 200 clinics. (5 Nov. 1993). 

Two of the reports state that he was captured in India (AFP 4 Nov. 1993; Xinhua 5 Nov. 1993). India Today reported that, according to the police, Dr. Singh was arrested in Mohali, Punjab (30 Nov. 1993). However, India Today cites unconfirmed reports that claim that the arrest was in fact made in Kathmandu by Nepali police.

According to Joyce Pettigrew's The Sikhs of Punjab:

Sohan Singh was taken into custody in 1994. Those accompanying him across the Nepal border were killed. He was placed in a forest rest house and subsequently in hospital (1995, 94).

The AFP report, citing police chief K.P.S. Gill, states that Dr. Singh "had just returned from an extended in neighbouring Pakistan with the aim of regrouping Sikh militant groups in disarray" (4 Nov. 1993).

Anthropologist Cynthia Keppley Mahmood, a well-known specialist on Sikh militancy in the Punjab, states in her book Fighting for Faith and Nation: Dialogues with Sikh Militants that Dr. Singh was in custody until 1996 (1996, 181). In a telephone interview with the Research Directorate, Dr. Keppley Mahmood stated that the circumstances surrounding the arrest, detention and release of Dr. Singh aroused suspicion and caused the Sikh independence movement to be thrown into upheaval (7 Apr. 1999). Dr. Keppley Mahmood further stated that this suspicion was based in part on the fact although other Sikh leaders had either been killed or remain imprisoned, Dr. Singh has, since his release, entered mainstream politics.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. Please find below the list of additional sources consulted in researching this response.

References

Agence France Presse (AFP). 4 November 1993. "Indian Police Arrest Sikh Militant Ideologue." (NEXIS)

India Today. 30 November 1993. R. Vinayak. "Sohan Singh The Panthic Ringleader."

Mahmood, Cynthia Keppley. 1996. Fighting for Faith and Nation: Dialogues with Sikh Militants. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Mahmood, Cynthia Keppley. 7 April 1999. Telephone interview.

New York Times. 5 November 1993. "189 Charged in Bombay Explosions." (NEXIS)

Pettigrew, Joyce. 1995. The Sikhs of the Punjab: Unheard Voices of State and Guerrilla Violence. London: Zed Books Ltd.

Xinhua. 5 November 1993. "Major News Items in Leading Indian Newspapers." (NEXIS)

Additional Sources Consulted

Human Rights Watch / Asia and Physicians for Human Rights. 1994, Dead Silence: The Legacy of Abuses in Punjab.

Jaijee, Inderjit Singh. 1995. Politics of Genocide: Punjab 1984-1994.

Resource Centre Amnesty International file on India, November 1993 - January 1994.

Resource Centre Country file on India, November 1993 - January 1994.