The Jodhpur detainees: 379 Sikhs charged after Operation Blue Star

Who: 379 Sikhs seized in and around Sri Harmandir Sahib during Operation Blue Star in June 1984; the CBI; the special court judge K.C. Sharma; and Amnesty International.

What: The CBI's charge sheet says that of the people apprehended, 382 "actually waged war" against the Government between 5 and 10 June 1984. It charges 379 under section 121 of the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act: 91 in judicial custody at Amritsar and Gurdaspur, 268 held under the National Security Act at Ajmer, Jodhpur and Nabha, and 20 not arrested. It proposes to discharge 35 more, taken while trying to leave the complex, for want of evidence. Amnesty International dates the first charges to 15 January 1985 and says the 379 were to be tried by a special court under the "Terrorist Affected Areas (Special Courts) Act, 1984", sitting inside Jodhpur Jail.

The Act let the court sit in camera and keep witnesses secret, allowed an appeal only to the Supreme Court within 30 days and, with section 111A of the Evidence Act, put the burden of proving innocence on those arrested where firearms had been used. On 8 May 1985 Judge Sharma refused the prosecutor's request to withhold all witnesses' names; the CBI appealed to the Supreme Court (appeal No. 465/85, pending from 11 July 1985) and the trial stalled. Rajiv Gandhi told BBC Panorama: "we are stuck because an appeal has been launched". A second charge sheet of 5 March 1987 named Gurcharan Singh Tohra, then SGPC president, as the main accused, for abetting "waging of war" by failing to stop arms being collected in the complex.

Amnesty, which began investigating in October 1986, gathered relatives' accounts of pilgrims, SGPC employees and a man delivering wheat for the langar, and concluded that the majority of those held had been wrongfully arrested. In 1988 it counted 324 still held, after 40 releases in March. The Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, citing The New York Times of 22 December 1988, records the release of 138 detainees and, on 3 March 1989, Rajiv Gandhi's announcement that he would free all but a few of the rest.

Where: Jodhpur Jail in Rajasthan, over 500 km from the detainees' homes in Punjab, where a special court sat inside the jail.

Why it mattered: Hundreds of Sikhs spent years in custody with no verdict. Amnesty adds that 60 of them had been tortured at Ladha Kothi before they were moved. A 2020 Asia Samachar column by Tridivesh Singh Maini says an Amritsar sessions court ordered Rs 4 lakh each for 40 former detainees in April 2017, finding "malicious prosecution, illegal detention and maltreatment"; the Centre appealed in 2018 and the appeal was later withdrawn.