Jaswant Singh Khalra documents cremation grounds

Who: Jaswant Singh Khalra: Sikh human rights documentation activist, General Secretary of the Akali Dal (Human Rights Wing).

What: Khalra's cremation grounds documentation, throughout 1994-1995, Khalra compiled extensive evidence of Punjab Police extrajudicial killings and illegal cremations of Kharku Singhs and suspected Kharku Singhs without notification to families:

• Found records of over 6,000 secret cremations in Amritsar district alone; the NHRC later accepted 2,097 cremations in the Amritsar area. Khalra's own estimate for all Punjab was 25,000.
• Visited cremation grounds across Punjab: Durgiana Mandir cremation ground Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Patti.
• Matched cremation records to disappearance records and police logs.
• Identified specific pattern: Sikhs arrested; held without trial; killed in "encounters"; cremated as "unclaimed" without families being notified.
• Presented findings to international human rights bodies (Amnesty International, US State Department Human Rights reports).
• April 5, 1995: Presented at Committee on Religious Freedom, US House of Representatives.

Where: Documentation spanned Amritsar, Majitha, Tarn Taran, Patti cremation grounds.

Why it mattered: Khalra's documentation transformed the international human rights narrative on Punjab counter-insurgency. The US State Department, Amnesty International, and other international bodies began citing Khalra's work as authoritative.

Indian state response: Khalra was subject to increasing surveillance and threats.

Subsequent development: See next event: Khalra's disappearance and extrajudicial killing.