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New Statistical Analysis damns
India’s official claims on Punjab counter insurgency
WSN Network
 Fremont: Even as
India celebrated its Republic Day and sang hosannas to its
Constitution, Human Rights activists chose the day to expose the
myth of the guarantees of life and liberty accorded under the
statute. Ensaaf and the Benetech Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG)
released a report that reveals the human cost of suspending
constitutional rights in
India.
The report’s verifiable quantitative findings on mass disappearances
and extrajudicial executions in the Indian state of Punjab
contradict New Delhi’s portrayal of the Punjab counterinsurgency as
a successful and “humane” campaign.
The report by Ensaaf and HRDAG, “Violent Deaths and Enforced
Disappearances During the Counterinsurgency in
Punjab, India,”
presents empirical findings suggesting that the intensification of
counterinsurgency operations in Punjab in the early 1990s was
accompanied by a shift in state violence from targeted lethal human
rights violations to systematic enforced disappearances and
extrajudicial executions, accompanied by mass “illegal cremations.”
Indian security officials have dismissed claims of human rights
violations as unavoidable “aberrations” during the counterinsurgency
against alleged terrorists in Punjab from 1984 to 1995.
“This report challenges explanations by Indian security
forces for enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions
using more than 20,000 records from independent sources which have
been analyzed using statistical methods,” said Romesh Silva, a
demographer at HRDAG and co-author of the report. “This scientific
analysis reveals that answers given by the government regarding the
nature and extent of these violations are implausible given the
available evidence. The victims and their families have a right to
the truth.”
Human rights groups have collected extensive qualitative
evidence about the types of abuses committed by Indian security
forces and the impunity that persists in
Punjab. Until now, human rights groups have lacked the capacity to
conduct quantitative research to analyze these violations and
definitively challenge explanations put forward by the Indian
government.
 This report uses quantitative methods to scientifically
demonstrate the implausibility that these lethal human rights
violations are random or minor aberrations as suggested by Indian
officials. The strong correlation found between lethal human rights
violations and overall lethal violence across time and space
supports the conclusion that enforced disappearances and
extrajudicial executions were part of a specific plan or widespread
practice used by security forces during the counterinsurgency.
The analysis also demonstrates that between 1988 and 1995,
militant deaths reported from an “encounter” or exchange of gunfire
with the security officers were strongly correlated with lethal
human rights abuses reported by the victims’ families. This
correlation supports assertions by human rights groups that these
encounters were fabricated by security forces to conceal
extrajudicial executions.
The report further demonstrates that when human rights
violations increased dramatically after 1991 and fewer families were
able to recover the bodies of their loved ones, “illegal cremations”
acknowledged by the Indian National Human Rights Commission also
increased. The strong correlation between these events suggests a
shift in state violence during the height of the counterinsurgency
towards large-scale enforced disappearances and extrajudicial
executions, coupled with mass cremations to dispose of the bodies.
“This report should serve as a wake-up call to the Indian
government that its security policies and practices violate the
fundamental rights of its citizens,” said Jasmine Marwaha, co-author
and Program Associate at Ensaaf. “Given the empirical findings
suggesting systematic abuses in
Punjab, the
government can no longer deny the facts while using the rhetoric of
national security. The public is now equipped to challenge the
government’s false narrative, and demand the vindication of
survivors’ rights to truth, justice, and reparations.”
The Ensaaf/HRDAG report is the most comprehensive,
quantitative analysis to date of available data on human rights
violations during the
Punjab
counterinsurgency. The analysis reviewed data from the local
English-language newspaper, the Tribune, cremation ground records
from the late human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra,
acknowledged cremations by the NHRC, and reported lethal human
rights violations provided by the Committee for the Coordination on
Disappearances in Punjab and the People’s Commission on Human Rights
Violations in
Punjab. The observed correlations between reported human rights
violations, reported deaths of alleged militants, and reported
secret “illegal cremations” shed further doubt on the government’s
official accounts of lethal violence in
Punjab and its
justification for such a disproportionate use of force.
Additional data and analysis will allow for clarification of
the total magnitude and patterns of violence throughout
Punjab, broadening
the discussion about the impact of counterinsurgency strategies on
human rights. Scientifically defensible analysis of political
violence can help enable honest public dialogue and support an
historically accurate narrative of the counterinsurgency in
Punjab, and initiatives for justice. This effort is part of joint
work by Ensaaf and HRDAG to introduce new evidence available to
truth, justice, and accountability processes that are focused on
political violence during the
Punjab
counterinsurgency.
28 January 2009
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