Ladha Kothi Interrogation Centre

Ladha Kothi is a jail-cum-interrogation centre in Sangrur district of Punjab. After Operation Blue Star, detainees held under the National Security Act (NSA) at Nabha jail were taken here in small groups, for short spells, to be interrogated. A judge who visited and a state commission later recorded that they had been tortured there.

Key moments

• September 1984 to mid-January 1985: Amnesty International says 60 of the detainees later held at Jodhpur, and 30 others arrested at the Golden Temple in June 1984, were brought from Nabha jail to Ladha Kothi in groups of four to eight. The Patiala judge T.S. Cheema confirmed that 92 detainees had been taken there in short spells, and all claimed to have been tortured (vol. III, pp. 134 to 135).
• 23 and 28 January 1985: after detainees complained to Justice S.S. Sodhi, the Vigilance Judge, Patiala's District and Sessions Judge T.S. Cheema visited Nabha jail and then Ladha Kothi. He recorded two common methods: a thick wooden pestle rolled over the thighs with one or two people standing on it, which left no outward mark; and the legs pulled far apart while the detainee sat held by the hair. He saw cells without cots, solitary confinement round the clock except for interrogation, an entrance guarded by the CRPF, and no regular doctor. He judged it "just an interrogation centre", and the detainees told him the moves from Nabha were a way to avoid producing them before a magistrate (vol. II, appendix 37, pp. 332 to 335).
• From late November 1985: a commission under Justice C.S. Tiwana, set up by the Punjab Government, found the detainees' statements credible and that 90 had been tortured at Ladha Kothi, where they were taken for that purpose. It said the motive was to find out whether any of them could be tied to a crime, which it called firmly established, and described the pestle and leg-stretching methods that were particularly common there (vol. III, pp. 135 to 136).
• Findings: the commission recommended compensation of Rs 20,000 to two detainees, Rs 15,000 to eleven and Rs 10,000 to the other 77, and disciplinary action against 21 police officers, among them the Superintendent of Police at Ladha Kothi. It did not recommend criminal cases, judging trials impractical (vol. III, pp. 139 to 140).
• 1987 to 1988: the special court at Jodhpur confirmed in August 1987 that the compensation should be paid. Amnesty International wrote in 1988 that it had been paid in early 1988 but that no disciplinary action had been taken, though the Supreme Court had ordered an inquiry into the officers, to finish by the end of July 1988 (vol. III, pp. 125 to 126, 139 to 140).

What it means today. Ladha Kothi is remembered as the place where Blue Star detainees were taken for questioning and, the state's own commission found, tortured.