New Delhi, August 19
Human rights watchdog Amnesty International has urged the Indian Government to punish any individual, including police or government officials, found responsible for human rights violations during the violence against Sikhs in Delhi in 1984.
“The organisation is concerned about further delays in the pursuit of justice for these victims and continuing impunity for its perpetrators,” the human rights body said in a statement.
Twenty-one years after the violence against the Sikhs in 1984, “virtually no one has been held to account”.
Eight inquiry commissions concerning the riots have preceded the Nanavati Commission, “but victims have yet to see justice”, it said.
After the Nanavati Commission report and the government’s action taken report were tabled in Parliament, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had condemned the violence against the Sikhs in 1984 and said criminal cases against individuals named in the report would be reopened and re-examined “within the ambit of law”.
Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee clarified that there would be no further commissions of inquiry but investigations would be held by the appropriate authority into specific findings against persons named in the report.
While the Amnesty International “welcomed” the steps, the organisation was “concerned about the ongoing delays” and urged the Government of India to “hold any perpetrators to account in a speedy and transparent manner”.
A similar pattern of delays to justice and impunity for perpetrators exists for other large-scale incidents of human rights violations in the country, it said.
During the period of militancy in Punjab — mid 1980s to mid 1990s — the Amnesty International said it had received reports of torture, deaths in custody, extrajudicial executions and “disappearances”.
While there have been a small number of prosecutions and despite the recommendations of specially established judicial inquiries and commissions, impunity has prevailed in many cases, it said and called for an end to impunity in these cases.
The rights watchdog also expressed concern about the ongoing impunity for perpetrators of human rights abuses against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002.
Over 2,000 persons, mostly Muslims, were killed in targeted violence following a fire in a train in which 59 Hindu activists had died.
While some cases are being tried outside Gujarat and the Supreme Court has directed that over 2,000 previously closed complaints be reviewed with a view to possible remedies, few perpetrators have been held to account, it added.
The body urged the Gujarat Government to take urgent steps to end impunity in the state.
