
Reports
Ensaaf’s groundbreaking reports document and analyze abuses and impunity, countering official denials and building evidence for accountability.

November 2014
No Stone Unturned: 25 Years of Contesting Impunity
Ensaaf
Read an in-depth analysis of the Kuljit Singh Dhatt case, including the role of state institutions in fabricating evidence, intimidating witnesses, protecting the perpetrators, and delaying justice. The report spotlights those who have stood by the truth, from family members to eyewitnesses. The family filed a case in September 1989 and a sessions court delivered a verdict on May 9, 2014. Learn why it took 25 years to reach a trial verdict and why justice still has not been delivered.

January 2009
Violent Deaths and Enforced Disappearances During the Counterinsurgency in Punjab, India
A Preliminary Quantitative Analysis
Ensaaf and the Benetech Human Rights Data Analysis Group
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.

October 2007
Protecting the Killers
A Policy of Impunity in Punjab, India
Ensaaf and Human Rights Watch
This report examines the challenges faced by victims and their relatives in pursuing legal avenues for accountability for the human rights abuses perpetrated during the government’s counterinsurgency campaign. The report describes the impunity enjoyed by officials responsible for violations and the near total failure of India’s judicial and state institutions, from the National Human Rights Commission to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), to provide justice for victims’ families.

March 2007 (2nd edition)
Twenty Years of Impunity
The November 1984 Pogroms of Sikhs in India
Ensaaf
In March 2007, Ensaaf released the second edition of Twenty Years of Impunity. More than two years had passed since the publication of the first edition. During that time, the Justice Nanavati Commission of Inquiry submitted its report to the Indian government, the Congress administration submitted an Action Taken Report to Parliament, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh apologized, but refused to accept state responsibility for the massacres. The report inclues a new chapter that succinctly articulates the failings of the Nanavati Commission and the Action Taken Report, after a thorough consideration of the evidence at the government’s disposal.

January 2007
The Punjab Mass Cremations Case (pdf)
India Burning the Rule of Law
Ensaaf
From 1984 to 1994, Punjab security forces engaged in counter-insurgency operations that included widespread and systematic human rights abuses such as torture, disappearances, and extrajudicial executions, which claimed an estimated 10,000 to 25,000 lives. In the early 1990s, Director General of Police (Punjab) KPS Gill expanded upon a system of rewards and incentives for police to capture and kill militants, leading to an increase in disappearances and extrajudicial executions of civilians and militants alike. Hundreds of perpetrators, including all of the major architects of these crimes, have escaped accountability.

October 2005
Punjab Police: Fabricating Terrorism through Illegal Detention and Torture
June 2005 to August 2005
Ensaaf
This report details human rights violations committed by Indian security forces in recent militancy-related arrests. From June 2005 to August 2005, Indian police claim to have arrested several dozen individuals intent on reviving or supporting militancy in Punjab. These arrests center around the apprehension of Jagtar Singh Hawara, the main accused in the 1995 assassination of Punjab’s chief minister.
Op-Eds
January 2015
Confront India on poor human rights record
The Hill
Sukhman Dhami (Ensaaf)
March 2013
India won’t be ‘the world’s largest democracy’ until it upholds human rights
Christian Science Monitor
Sukhman Dhami (Ensaaf)
November 2009
Bay Area can help seek justice in India massacres
The Mercury News
Jaskaran Kaur (Ensaaf)
February 2007
Injustice Cost Votes in Punjab Polls
The Asian Age
Jasmine Marwaha (Ensaaf) and Meenakshi Ganguly (Human Rights Watch)
July 2005
The Legacy of India’s Counter-Terrorism
The Boston Globe
Jaskaran Kaur (Ensaaf)
Letters, Communications & Legal Briefs
December 2017
Rights Groups Call on UN Expert to Intervene in Torture of British National
Human rights organisations REDRESS and Ensaaf today have filed an urgent appeal to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture in the case of Jagtar Singh Johal, “Jaggi”, a British man who has been detained without charge in India since 4 November 2017.
April 2015
Illegal Detention and Abuse of U.S. Citizen in Punjab
On April 15, 2015, Ensaaf reached out to Congressmen and Senators on behalf of U.S. citizen Ravinderjeet Singh. The letter discusses the threats, false charges, illegal and arbitrary detention, and physical abuse suffered by Ravinderjeet Singh by government and security forces in Punjab, India.
For a copy of each letter, please click on the following links: Congressman Chris Smith; Senator Dianne Feinstein; Senator Barbara Boxer; Congressman Jerry McNerney.
November 2014
Ensaaf, The Sikh Coalition, and Human Rights Watch Urge President Obama To Support Justice for 1984 Massacres
Ensaaf, in partnership with The Sikh Coalition and Human Rights Watch, sent a letter today to President Barack Obama, urging him to support justice for the 1984 anti-Sikh massacres, which claimed the lives of thousands of Sikhs throughout India 30 years ago.
April 2013
Joint Letter to United States Department of State: Call on India to Halt the Execution of Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar (pdf)
Ensaaf, Jakara Movement, Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Sikh Coalition, Sikh Research Institute, United Sikhs and Voices For Freedom issued letters to the United States Department of State (pdf), Commission on International Religious Freedom (pdf), and the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission (pdf).
January 2012
Joint Submission to Universal Periodic Review by Ensaaf and REDRESS (pdf)
Ensaaf
November 2007
Submission to the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review (pdf)
Ensaaf
November 2007
Submission to UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances (pdf)
Ensaaf, REDRESS, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice
September 2006
International Legal Arguments: High Court Petition to Investigate and Prosecute Gill for Murder of Khalra (pdf)
Ensaaf
September 2006
Executive Summary: High Court Petition to Investigate and Prosecute Gill for Murder of Khalra (pdf)
Ensaaf
May 2006
Communication to Special Representative on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders (Disappearance of Human Rights Attorney Sukhwinder Singh Bhatti) (pdf)
Ensaaf
May 2006
Joint Letter to Director, Central Bureau of Investigation, calling for prosecution of KPS Gill for murder of Jaswant Singh Khalra
Ensaaf, Human Rights Watch, REDRESS, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice
November 2005
Summary of Order Convicting Six Punjab Policemen in Khalra’s Abduction and Murder
Ensaaf
September 2005
Joint Letter to Congressional Human Rights Caucus: The “Disappeared” and the Disappearance of Justice in India
Ensaaf, Human Rights Watch, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice
Select Other Publications (not published by Ensaaf)
- India’s Sikhs: Waiting for Justice, Barbara Crossette, World Policy Journal (Summer 2004) (PDF)
- REDRESS, Letter to Chief Constable and Press Release, Indo-UK police conference (Sept. 2003)
- A Judicial Blackout: Judicial Impunity for Disappearances in Punjab, India, Jaskaran Kaur, Harvard Human Rights Journal (Spring 2002)
- India: Don’t Torture Sikh Activist Extradited by U.S. (Kulvir Singh Barapind)
- India: Draconian Response to Naxalite Violence (References KPS Gill)
- Letter to National Human Rights Commission on Mass Cremations Case
- Other Screams of Terror, by Meenakshi Ganguly
- Dead End in Punjab, by Brad Adams
- India: Prosecute Killers of Sikhs (1984 Pogroms)
- Physicians for Human Rights and Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture Report Submitted to National Human Rights Commission
- Reduced to Ashes: The Insurgency and Human Rights in Punjab (PDF, 5 MB)