Jaswant Singh Khalra
| Jaswant Singh Khalra | |
|---|---|
Jaswant Singh Khalra speaking at Gurudwara Sahib in Canada.
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| Born |
2 November 1952 Amritsar, Punjab, India |
| Died | 6 September 1995 |
| Occupation | Human Right Activist |
| Home town | Khalra village,district Taran Taaran Sahib. |
| Notes | |
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He was a Human Rights Activist.
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Jaswant Singh Khalra (1952–1995) was a Sikh human rights activist from India.
Jaswant Singh Khalra's grandfather Harnamm Singh was an activist in the Ghadar movement for the independence of India. Jaswant Singh is survived by his wife, Paramjit Kaur Khalra and two children.
Jaswant Singh Khalra was a bank director in the city of Amritsar in Punjab during the militancy. Following Operation Blue Star, the assassination of Indira Gandhi, and the 1984 Anti-Sikh Riots, police were empowered to detain suspects for any reason, ostensibly as suspected terrorists. Police were accused of killing unarmed suspects in staged shootouts and burning thousands of dead bodies to cover up the murders.
As per CBI investigation records quoted by SC division bench in their judgement on Khlara custodial death case, he was a human rights activist working on abduction, elimination and cremation of unclaimed human bodies during disturbed period.Court observed that Police has been eliminating young persons under pretext of being militants and disposing their dead bodies without any records .
While searching for some colleagues who went missing, Jaswant Singh Khalra discovered files from the municipal corporation of the city of Amritsar which contained the names, age, address of those who had been killed and later burned by the Police. Further research revealed other cases in 3 other districts in Punjab, increasing the list by thousands.
The National Human Rights Commission released a list of some of the identified bodies that cremated in the police districts of Amritsar, Majitha and Tarn Taran between June 1984 to December 1994. That list can be viewed here.
On 6 September 1995, while washing his car in front of his house, Khalra was allegedly abducted by Personnel of Punjab Police and taken to Jhabal police station. Although witnesses gave statements implicating the police and have named former police chief Kanwar Pal Singh Gill as a conspirator, police denied having ever arrested or detained him, and claimed to have no knowledge of his whereabouts.
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