From 1984 to 1995, the state of

Punjab Punjab (; ; also romanised as Panjāb or Panj-Āb) is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia. It is located in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of modern-day eastern Pakistan and no ...

in northern

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

was engaged in a power struggle between the militant secessionist

Khalistan movement The Khalistan movement is a separatist movement seeking to create a homeland for Sikhs by establishing an ethno-religious sovereign state called Khalistan () in the Punjab region. The proposed boundaries of Khalistan vary between different gr ...

and Indian security forces. The Indian government responded to the escalating

Punjab insurgency The Insurgency in Punjab was an armed campaign by the separatists of the Khalistan movement from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. Economic and social pressures driven by the Green Revolution prompted calls for Sikh autonomy and separatism. This ...

by launching

Operation Blue Star Operation Blue Star was a military operation by the Indian Armed Forces conducted between 1 and 10 June 1984 to remove Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and other Sikh militants from the Golden Temple (Harmandir Sahib), a holy site of Sikhism, and i ...

in 1984, storming the

Harmandir Sahib The Golden Temple is a gurdwara located in Amritsar, Punjab, India. It is the pre-eminent spiritual site of Sikhism. It is one of the Holy place, holiest sites in Sikhism, alongside the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur in Kartarpur, Pakistan, ...

, or Golden Temple complex in

Amritsar Amritsar, also known as Ambarsar, is the second-List of cities in Punjab, India by population, largest city in the India, Indian state of Punjab, India, Punjab, after Ludhiana. Located in the Majha region, it is a major cultural, transportatio ...

—the center of Sikh religious and spiritual life, where some militant groups had retreated. The Operation was controversial and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of civilians, militants and soldiers. After

Sikh Sikhs (singular Sikh: or ; , ) are an ethnoreligious group who adhere to Sikhism, a religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Guru Nanak. The term ''Si ...

bodyguards assassinated Prime Minister

Indira Gandhi Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (Given name, ''née'' Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician and stateswoman who served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India from 1966 to 1977 and again from 1980 un ...

, a state wide massacre ensued. The aftermath of these events were felt for more than a decade. According to a

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...

report, state security forces adopted "increasingly brutal methods to stem the insurgency, including arbitrary arrests, torture, prolonged detention without trial, disappearances and summary killings of civilians and suspected militants". Militant organizations responded with increased violence aimed at civilians, state security forces, and Sikh political leaders deemed to be negotiating with the government.

Encounters

The Human Rights Watch report on Punjab concluded that security forces in Punjab "systematically violated

international human rights law International human rights law (IHRL) is the body of international law designed to promote human rights on social, regional, and domestic levels. As a form of international law, international human rights law is primarily made up of treaties, ag ...

as well as the

laws of war The law of war is a component of international law that regulates the conditions for initiating war (''jus ad bellum'') and the conduct of hostilities (''jus in bello''). Laws of war define sovereignty and nationhood, states and territories, ...

governing internal armed conflict." It further stated that "members of the Punjab police, the federal paramilitary troops of the

Central Reserve Police Force The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) is a central armed police force in India under the Ministry of Home Affairs. The CRPF assists states and Union Territories in maintaining law and order and internal security. It is composed of the Cent ...

and the

Border Security Force The Border Security Force (BSF) is a central armed police force in India under the Ministry of Home Affairs. It is responsible for guarding India’s borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh. It was formed in the wake of the Indo-Pak War of 196 ...

and, to a lesser extent, the

Indian Army The Indian Army (IA) (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the Land warfare, land-based branch and largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Commander-in-Chief, Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head ...

...engaged in widespread

summary execution In civil and military jurisprudence, summary execution is the putting to death of a person accused of a crime without the benefit of a free and fair trial. The term results from the legal concept of summary justice to punish a summary offense, a ...

s of civilians and suspected militants" The Human Rights Watch delegation concluded that "based on the frequency with which these killings were reported to take place and the consistency of the eyewitness testimony," such executions were not aberrations but in fact "the product of a deliberate policy known to high-ranking security personnel and members of the civil administrations in Punjab and New Delhi." Members of the delegation believed that there was "credible evidence to indicate that, in some cases, the police...actually recruited and trained extrajudicial forces to carry out many of these killings," and that further, "security legislation...increased the likelihood of such abuses by authorizing the security forces to shoot to kill and by protecting them from prosecution for human rights violations". During the counter-insurgency campaign the Indian central government gave its security forces wide leeway in their attempt to quell the insurgency, and refused to exert the control necessary to stop widespread abuse of human rights. The Asia Division of Human Rights Watch (formerly Asia Watch) sent a delegation to Punjab for two months in 1990, and during that limited time "documented 29

extrajudicial executions An extrajudicial killing (also known as an extrajudicial execution or an extralegal killing) is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, ...

in which the security forces falsely claimed that the victims were killed in ‘encounters’", along with 12 disappearances and 32 cases of

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...

by security forces. ''US state department'' says that over 41,000 cash bounties were paid to police in Punjab for extrajudicial killings of Sikhs between 1991 and 1993 alone and India has not allowed Amnesty International to conduct an independent human-rights investigation in Punjab since 1978.

National Security Act and Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act

In 1980, India’s National Security Act was passed, which allowed security officials to detain a suspect without charge or trial for one year. In 1984, the NSA was amended so that suspected militants in Punjab could be detained for up to two years. After the 1984 amendments, security officials could detain a suspect for over four months before notifying an Advisory Board of the grounds for detention, and the Board did not have to issue a judgment to the government on those grounds for five more months. Detainees were not informed of any of these decisions, and therefore had no opportunity to file a

habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a legal procedure invoking the jurisdiction of a court to review the unlawful detention or imprisonment of an individual, and request the individual's custodian (usually a prison official) to ...

petition. Similarly, the

Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...

, or TADA, criminalized any action deemed to be part of a "disruptive activity" and gave the police more time to detain suspects without transfer to judicial custody. Investigations have shown that many of those detained under such laws at various times since their enactment have been innocent of any connection with militant activity. Despite the fact that the Indian government allowed the TADA to lapse in 1995, human rights organizations have claimed that many suspects remained in custody, without charge, awaiting prosecution under TADA.

Armed Forces Special Powers Act

The Armed Forces (Punjab and Chandigarh)Special Powers Act (AFSPA) was passed in 1983. It allows either the governor of a region or the Central Government to declare any part of the state a "disturbed" area, allowing security forces to kill any person carrying something deemed capable of being a weapon, and arrest any person based on a "reasonable suspicion" that they intend to commit an offense. It also empowers security forces to kill any person who is engaged in an action deemed to be a threat to public order, and instructs courts not to take cognizance of any offense committed by such security forces unless specifically instructed to do so by the Central Government.

Militants Human Right violations

According to the US State Department, and the Assistant Inspector General of the Punjab Police Intelligence Division, the KCF was responsible for the 1995 assassination of Chief Minister Beant Singh. Many incidents of innocent civilians, mostly Hindus, being dragged from buses and brutally murdered also took place in Punjab. One example among many is the killing of 72 Hindus in two separate incidents near the Haryana border. KCF Terrorists also butchered 125 Hindus travelling by train near Ludhiana. Sikh Terrorists even went as far to kill whole families of Hindus from villages so as to illegally acquire their land and property. Sikh militants were also responsible for murders of many famous Punjabi Personalities including

Amar Singh Chamkila Amar Singh Chamkila (21 July 1960 8 March 1988) was an Indian singer and musician of Punjabi music. Chamkila's vivid language, high-pitched vocals, and novel compositions accompanied by tumbi made him popular. His music was influenced by the ...

, Punjabi Revolutionary Poet Avtar Singh

Pash Avtar Singh Sandhu (9 September 1950 – 23 March 1988), who wrote under the pen name Pash, was an Indian poet, one of the major poets in Punjabi of the 1970s. He was killed by Sikh extremists on 23 March 1988. His strongly left-wing views w ...

, Punjabi actor Veerendar Singh, Punjab Kesari Group founder and Ex MP Lala Jagat Narain and many more. Sikh Terrorists were involved in bombing of

Air India Flight 182 Air India Flight 182 was a passenger flight operating on the Montréal–Mirabel International Airport, Montreal–Heathrow Airport, London–Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi–Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, Mumb ...

killing 329 people including crew.

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