Bonjour Planet Earth: Whistleblower exposes India's murderous cops...

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Whistleblower exposes India's murderous cops...

From 1991 to 1993, an Indian cop named Satwant Singh Manak claimed that he witnessed colleagues in the Punjab police force torturing and killing more than a dozen unarmed individuals. Corruption was rampant in the force at that time, and human rights groups like Human Rights Watch and Ensaaf reported that the Punjab police disappeared and executed thousands of individuals. Finally, after the death of a teenager, Manak decided to report the killings to his superiors—and thus kicked off a two-decade long process of retaliation and court cases that culminated in Manak’s appeal to the Supreme Court of India this April. Now, a new documentary, The Last Killing—out on May 23—traces the story of Manak and the lives of the alleged victims on whose behalf he’s fought for so long.

The film, directed by Satinder Kaur and produced by Ensaaf, follows Manak’s saga back almost three decades ago, when he decided to join the Punjab police force as a bright-eyed cadet. It didn’t take long for Manak to witness the rot at the core of the institution. From 1991 to 1993, Manak says he watched, horrified, as fellow officers brutally beat, tortured and executed some 15 individuals—including, he says, Kulwant Singh, a young Punjabi.

Manak decided to speak out and inform his superiors of the alleged killings—an act that led to his own detainment and, reportedly, his torture. After keeping him in illegal detention for 42 days, the Punjab police filed legal cases against him, accusing him of carrying an unlicensed weapon, theft, and firing on a police party with intent to kill —all false charges, Manak says. He was released on bail and promptly filed a lawsuit in October 1994 against his colleagues accusing them of torturing and murdering 10 individuals. Full story...

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