Chandigarh:Punjab Chief Minister Capt. Amarinder Singh in a recent tweet disclosed a fact which amounts to clear admission of the fact that there were extra-judicial killings of the Sikhs in Punjab during 1980s-90.
Capt. Amarinder disclosed that he was arranged surrender of 21 “Khalistani militants” but they were killed. Amarinder Singh’s tweet also discloses that the policy of extra-judicial killings had sanction from the top of the Indian government.
On May 17, Punjab CM wrote in a tweet: “I felt betrayed by then PM Chandra Shekhar after 21 Khalistani militants I arranged to surrender were killed. Never spoke to him after that“.
The human rights activists in Punjab have all along been saying that Indian forces indulged into widespread, systematic and organised extra-judicial killings and fake encounters in Punjab during 1980s-90s.
Earlier, in 2006, the then Punjab DGP SS Virk had admitted to have rehabilitated around 300 police cats (a term used for police informers who were used to identify the Sikh militants during 1980s-90s) under ‘assumed’ identities. Human rights groups say that these assumed identities were given to these police cats after they were shown as dead but in fact innocent Sikh youth were extra-judicially killed by the police to show that the police cats were dead.
Talking to Sikh Siyasat News, Human Rights Lawyer and senior lawyer of Punjab and Haryana High Court Advocate Rajvinder Singh Bains said that Amarinder’s statement is an official confirmation regarding the Indian state’s policy of organised, systematic and widespread fake encounters in Punjab during 1980-90s.