Posted on 08/05/2002 9:07:15 AM PDT by TBP
Indian Government Admits Its Responsibility for Massacre in Chithisinghpora
Evidence a Fraud, Indian Soldiers Implicated
Council of Khalistan Said India Was Responsible When Massacre Happened
Continues Pattern of Pitting Minorities Against Each Other
WASHINGTON, D.C., August 2, 2002–According to today’s Washington Times, the Indian government has admitted that its forces were responsible for the massacre of 35 Sikhs in the village of Chithisinghpora, Kashmir on March 20, 2000. India finally admitted that the evidence it used to implicate alleged Kashmiri “militants” in the murders was faked.
This is a victory for Sikhs, including the Council of Khalistan, who have maintained that the Indian government is responsible for this atrocity. However, it is only after India’s case against the alleged “militants” was exposed that it took responsibility.
The massacre was timed to occur at the time of former President Clinton’s visit to India. Recent attacks on minorities also blamed on alleged “militants”, took place just before Secretary of State Colin Powell visited. At the time of the Chithisinghpora massacre, Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh, President of the Council of Khalistan, strongly condemned the murders. “What motive would Kashmiri freedom fighters have to kill Sikhs? This would be especially stupid when President Clinton is visiting. The freedom movements in Kashmir, Khalistan, Nagaland, and throughout India need the support of the United States,” he said. Khalistan is the Sikh homeland declared independent on October 7, 1987.
The massacres continued a pattern of repression and terrorism against minorities by the Indian government, which it attempts to blame on other minorities to divide and rule the minority peoples within its artificial borders. In November 1994, the Indian newspaper Hitavada reported that the Indian government paid the late governor of Punjab, Surendra Nath, $1.5 billion to organize and support covert terrorist activity in Punjab, Khalistan, and in neighboring Kashmir. The book Soft Target, written by Canadian journalists Brian McAndrew and Zuhair Kashmeri, shows that the Indian government blew up its own airliner in 1985 to blame Sikhs and justify further repression. It quotes an agent of the Canadian Security Investigation Service (CSIS) as saying, “If you really want to clear up the incidents quickly, take vans down to the Indian High Commission and the consulates in Toronto and Vancouver. We know it and they know it that they are involved.” On January 2, the Washington Times reported that India sponsors cross-border terrorism in the Pakistani province of Sindh.
A report issued last year by the Movement Against State Repression (MASR) shows that India admitted that it held 52,268 political prisoners under the repressive “Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act” (TADA) even though it expired in 1995. Many have been in illegal custody since 1984. There has been no list published of those who were acquitted under TADA and those who are still rotting in Indian jails. Additionally, according to Amnesty International, there are tens of thousands of other minorities being held as political prisoners. On February 28, 42 Members of the U.S. Congress from both parties wrote to President Bush to urge him to work for the release of Sikh political prisoners. The MASR report quotes the Punjab Civil Magistracy as writing “if we add up the figures of the last few years the number of innocent persons killed would run into lakhs [hundreds of thousands.]”
Indian security forces have murdered over 250,000 Sikhs since 1984, according to figures compiled by the Punjab State Magistracy and human-rights organizations. These figures were published in the book The Politics of Genocide by Inderjit Singh Jaijee. India has also killed over 200,000 Christians in Nagaland since 1947, over 80,000 Kashmiris since 1988, and tens of thousands of other minorities. Christians have been victims of a campaign of terror that has been going on since Christmas 1998. Churches have been burned, Christian schools and prayer halls have been attacked, nuns have been raped, and priests have been killed. Missionary Graham Staines and his two sons were burned alive while they slept in their jeep by militant Hindu members of the RSS, the parent organization of the ruling BJP.
“It is good that India has finally admitted its responsibility for the massacre at Chithisinghpora,” Dr. Aulakh said. “Now I urge the U.S. government to place sanctions on India as a country that practices and promotes terrorism. The Chithisinghpora massacre proves that India is not a democracy, but a repressive, terrorist state which murders its minorities.”
Can you post the Washington Times article in which the indian govenrment admitted its forces killed the 35 sikhs?
ANANTNAG, India — Indian army troops hunting for terrorists involved in an attack in Kashmir killed and buried innocent civilians, and when protests by villagers forced exhumation of their bodies, they fudged DNA tests to try to prove that the remains were those of Pakistani militants, government reports have revealed.
On July 16, Mr. Abdullah announced the DNA test results to the state legislative assembly in Srinagar, saying the report established that the dead men were "not foreign terrorists, as contended by the forces, but innocent civilians."
I have posted the relevant article from the Washington Times below, so feel free to take a look. I trust that unlike the sources which you post from, your dedication to the Khalistani cause hasn't atrophied your reading comprehension skills.
ANANTNAG, India — Indian army troops hunting for terrorists involved in an attack in Kashmir killed and buried innocent civilians, and when protests by villagers forced exhumation of their bodies, they fudged DNA tests to try to prove that the remains were those of Pakistani militants, government reports have revealed.
Human rights groups frequently have reported abuses by the Indian army in the territory claimed by both India and Pakistan, but the incident is one of a few cases of excesses conceded by government officials.
On March 20, 2000, when President Clinton was visiting India, 35 Sikhs were killed in Chattisinghpura village in Kashmir by suspected Islamic militants disguised in army uniforms. India blamed Pakistan-based terrorists for the attack.
Four days later, 17 Muslim residents from three neighboring villages went missing. Simultaneously, reports emerged that five Pakistani terrorists involved in the attack had been killed in an "encounter."
Juma Khan, a 45-year-old resident of Brari Angan village, was picked up at night by soldiers without any explanation. The local police said they had no knowledge of the arrest.
"I did not know where else to go then. I thought they would not harm him because he was a family man and was not involved in anything," Mr. Khan's wife, Roshan Jan, said recently.
Two days after Mr. Khan was picked up, an army statement said five "foreign militants" from Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen holed up in a house in neighboring Panchalthan village were shot dead by army sharpshooters during a "ferocious encounter."
Bodies of those killed were buried quickly by the army without autopsies. From clothing and personal items recovered around the burial sites, villagers ascertained that the five were from among the missing villagers.
As public protests grew, the state government ordered, two weeks after the men had been buried, that the bodies be exhumed.
Although the bodies were charred, the army fatigues in which they had been clothed were mysteriously intact. Most bodies had torture marks on them. One body was headless.
State Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah ordered DNA testing to ascertain their identities. But that plan came under a cloud when two forensic laboratories said the DNA samples of the dead men's relatives had been tampered with.
"In one case, blood samples were said to belong to the mother and daughter of one victim. But not only were the samples male in origin, but both belonged to the same man," a senior scientist of Central Forensic Science Laboratory in Calcutta said this week.
An investigation by the Times of India newspaper revealed that in three cases the samples of women relatives were found to have been collected from men. Samples of another woman relative contained DNA of two individuals.
The government suspended the doctors who had collected the samples, and a new team, headed by a senior police officer, collected blood samples in April this year.
On July 16, Mr. Abdullah announced the DNA test results to the state legislative assembly in Srinagar, saying the report established that the dead men were "not foreign terrorists, as contended by the forces, but innocent civilians."
He said the federal Central Bureau of Investigation would probe the DNA tests, the guilty would be punished, and relatives of the victims would be compensated.
But Mr. Khan's wife said nothing could compensate for the loss of her husband.
Waco, and all that stuff...
Thanks for the ping, and the facts.
Truth matters.
Every ethnic/religious/linguistic group in India has legitimate grievances against someone.
I guess you are the kind that posts false reports and promptly scamper underground!
Try this link: http://indianterrorism.mybravenet.com/35_Sikhs_killed_by_Indian_troops.htm Some very interesting information.
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