Indian Government Admits Its Responsibility for Massacre in Chithisinghpora

Council of Khalistan ^ | August 2, 2002 | Council of Khalistan

[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.”

[atc]

Tim (TBP) is just trying to keep his job of press director at the Council of Khalistan.