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India Must be Held Accountable
for Manipur Fake Encounter
WSN Network
Ottawa: The
World Sikh Organization of Canada (WSO) has condemned the continuing
human rights violations and fake encounter killings being carried
out by security forces in India. Reacting to publication of
photographs of the broad daylight murder of 27 year old Chongkham
Sanjit in a fake encounter by Indian security forces in the state of
Manipur, the WSO's Ram Raghbir Singh Chahal said it was another
confirmation of the long standing Indian practice of killing alleged
suspects in staged encounters.
"We applaud the
bravery of the photographer who captured these images, and hope that
the international community will do its utmost to protect him.
India’s
history of treatment of individuals who try to expose police
atrocities, is rife with bloodshed. This was the case with human
rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, who exposed thousands of
police “disappearances” in Punjab, only to be disappeared himself by
the Indian police in 1995,” he said.
Gian Singh
Sandhu, Senior Policy Advisor of the WSO, said, “The international
community must awaken to the police atrocities that have become a
party of daily life in India."
The expose comes
in the wake of the August 4, 2009, release of Human Rights Watch’s
report, "Broken System: Dysfunction, Abuse and Impunity in the
Indian Police" which documents a range of human rights violations
committed by Indian police, including arbitrary arrest and
detention, torture and extrajudicial killings.
Despite India’s
claims of being the world’s largest democracy on the fast-track to
becoming an economic powerhouse, little has been done to improve its
abysmal human rights record. WSO President, Gurpreet Singh Bal,
stated, “India must be held accountable for the actions of its
security forces including widespread torture, arbitrary detentions
and disappearances. The murder of Chongkhan Sanjit should be a
wakeup call to the world community to take note of the human rights
abuses occurring in India. Diplomatic pressure must be exerted on
India to bring these practices to an end.”
12
August 2009
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