NEW DELHI—Families of Sikh victims killed by police in India through fake encounters and extra-judicial killings during [the Sikh Freedom Movement] say the compensation that was recently awarded is “too little, too late.” Many of these murders were under direct orders of the then Chief Minister of Punjab, Beant “Singh.”
India’s National Human Rights Commission has announced that 279.4m rupees ($5.5m; £3.4m) be paid to the families of 1513 victims killed over the course of 13 years, between 1984 and 1996.
That is, little more than approximately US $4000 per victim for the murder of an innocent father, husband, or son 2 to 3 decades ago!
The total amount being offered to 1513 victims is less than what any democratic state in the West would be required to pay for a few such victims.
The commission investigated 2,097 cases but many bodies were unidentified.
‘Cremations Case’
These victims came to the forefront upon revelations early-on that the government had carried out hurried and secret mass cremations of innocent Sikh youth that had been picked up from their homes and murdered in cold blood by Indian police and military personnel.
“The families have waited years and this amount of monetary compensation is not enough,” Navkiran Singh, a lawyer for one of the families, told the BBC.
Furthermore, the “courts have not answered the question of culpability of the police officers who killed the people and disposed of the bodies,” added Navkiran Singh.
Navkiran Singh represents Paramjit Kaur Khalsa, whose husband was killed at that time.
The state has to pay the money, yet “no process of rehabilitation has been started for victims of the police killings,” said Navkiran Singh.
The families feel this is discriminatory as purported ‘victims’ of militants—mostly Hindu claimants—have already been given compensation by the state.
The commission also found human rights violations in many of the killings in the three districts of Amritsar, Manjitha and Tarn Taran that it investigated.
Navkiran Singh said they will now send an application to Punjab’s chief minister for the State to rehabilitate the families since the commission has recognised they are also “victims of injustice”.
Otherwise he said the State is giving the families “a reason to pick up the gun again.”
The NHRC is investigating what has become known as “The Cremations Case”.
While the official figure for the number of people killed [by the government’s violent backlash during the Sikh Freedom Movement] from 1984-1996 is 15,000, many human rights groups claim it is much higher and could be more than 25,000.
The NHRC has yet to “investigate” similar mass-murders which came to light recently, which had been carried out in various cities, towns and villages in Haryana.
