Alam Sena

Alam Sena, "Alam's Army", is the name used for an irregular force around the Punjab Police officer Mohammad Izhar Alam (1948 to 2021). Its members were called "cats". Ensaaf says human rights groups regularly reported during the counter-insurgency on a paramilitary group that Alam organised and ran, which it calls the Alam Sena and describes as notorious for human rights violations.

What it was: A cable from the US Embassy in New Delhi dated 19 December 2005, which Ensaaf quotes, says Alam put together a personal force of about 150 men that included cashiered police officers and "rehabilitated Sikh terrorists" (the cable's words). It adds that the group reached across Punjab and is alleged to have had a free hand in possibly thousands of staged "encounter killings".

The officer: Ensaaf lists Alam as SSP Ropar from 31 October 1983, SSP Jalandhar from 15 November 1985 and SSP Amritsar from 1 July 1986 to 19 April 1988. The government of India gave him the Padma Shri in 1987 and kept promoting him, to Additional DGP (Prisons) in 2002. He retired in 2009, and The Tribune calls him a former DGP. Ensaaf's dossier on him lists 22 cases of extrajudicial execution (21) or enforced disappearance (1) reportedly under his command, and says this undercounts the likely total.

Key moments

• 1983 to 1989: Alam's postings at Ropar, Jalandhar and Amritsar, and as a DIG, during the Kharku years (Ensaaf).
• 19 December 2005: the US Embassy cable describing the force.
• 11 and 12 September 2007: arrested former DGP S. S. Virk says the Punjab government should probe every officer who ran "cats", men The Tribune calls militant-turned informers. Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal says he does not approve of what violates the law but does not say whether he would order such probes.
• 6 and 7 July 2021: Alam dies of cardiac arrest at a Mohali hospital and is buried at Roza Sharif, Fatehgarh Sahib, with state honours. The DGP praised his service during militancy, while Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) workers protested, calling him the killer of innocent Sikh youths in fake encounters, and were detained.

Where it stands: Ensaaf says Alam died without being held to account and that the full truth rests with the government of India. The sources opened record no court judgment on the force as a body.