Thirty-nine years ago, the 1984 Indian Army attack on the Harmandir Sahib complex in Amritsar, Punjab marked the beginning of a decades long reign of terror in which India’s security forces disappeared and unlawfully killed thousands. Today, Ensaaf releases data on hundreds of police officials named by survivors as directly involved in unlawfully killing 2,003 individuals.
The 5300+ profiles on Ensaaf’s data visualization site had previously identified officials involved in the abduction/disappearance of victims. Today, Ensaaf releases data for 2,003 profiles where survivors identified the officials directly involved in the killing of victims. See the profiles of 14-year old Puran Singh, 87-year old Dewarki Kaur, and 35-year old Surinder Kaur, and many more, to learn who the family holds responsible for the killing of their loved one.
The 5300+ profiles on Ensaaf’s data visualization site had previously identified officials involved in the abduction/disappearance of victims. Today, Ensaaf releases data for 2,003 profiles where survivors identified the officials directly involved in the killing of victims. See the profiles of 14-year old Puran Singh, 87-year old Dewarki Kaur, and 35-year old Surinder Kaur, and many more, to learn who the family holds responsible for the killing of their loved one.
Ensaaf has selected 40 senior police officials to highlight their direct involvement in the abduction/disappearance and/or unlawful killing of victims.
Now that Ensaaf has released this data, Ensaaf will build detailed dossiers attributing responsibility to senior police officials for both their direct and command involvement. Ensaaf has already released one detailed report on Sumedh Saini, and plans to release several more this year.
In these 2,003 cases where families named killing officials, Ensaaf drew from survivor testimony, and then cross-referenced thousands of articles published in the daily Punjabi Ajit, the Indian Police Service annual posting lists, as well as the websites of individual police districts, to confirm postings of senior police officials.
This latest data release continues Ensaaf’s goals to promote survivors’ right to truth, to counter state denial, and to promote accountability by preserving evidence and archival information.
Please donate today and help us continue this work to document crimes against humanity in Punjab.
Ensaaf’s data visualization site on Crimes Against Humanity in Punjab allows users to view 5,300 profiles in detail. Victim profiles in both the gallery view and the map can be filtered according to several variables to identify subsets of victims and explore patterns of gross human rights violations. Read more about the project and browse the extensive information available on crimes against humanity in Punjab.
The Ensaaf Team
