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NHRC urged to probe `disappearances' in Punjab

New York June 12. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) must fulfil its mandate to investigate ``forced disappearances'' in Punjab, the Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.

Six years ago, the Supreme Court directed the NHRC to investigate 2,097 cases of illegal cremation in Punjab's Amritsar district. The NHRC is yet to hear testimony even in a single case.

The Human Rights Watch commended the Committee for Coordination of Disappearances in Punjab (CCDP), a Punjab-based human rights organisation, for its 634-page report documenting 672 of the ``disappearance'' cases currently pending before the NHRC.

The first volume of the report, `Reduced to Ashes: The Insurgency and Human Rights in Punjab', is based on six years of research and was released in the United States on Wednesday. ``Ending State impunity for abuses in Punjab must become a priority,'' said Smita Narula, senior researcher for South Asia at the Human Rights Watch. ``The NHRC has shown great courage and leadership with its work on the 2002 massacres in Gujarat. We hope it will do the same in Punjab.''

The CCDP's report builds on the work of Jaswant Singh Khalra, a lawyer and human rights activist, who was abducted and ``disappeared'' in September 1995.

Mr. Khalra filed the initial public interest litigation petition that eventually led the Supreme Court to order an NHRC investigation into the illegal cremations. ``Thousands of family members still await justice,'' said Ms. Narula.

``The CCDP report demonstrates that investigations into the abuses is possible, if the political will exists to hold the perpetrators responsible.''

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