Family of slain Indian activist Jaswant Singh Khalra seeks truth three decades after his murder

On September 6, 1995 human‑rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra was seized by police outside his home in Amritsar, Punjab, and later killed after being tortured; his body has never been recovered. Khalra had been documenting thousands of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings carried out by Indian security forces during the 1980s‑90s Khalistan insurgency. He filed a petition with the Supreme Court alleging that police had cremated about 25,000 unidentified bodies, a claim the authorities dismissed. Thirty years on, his wife Paramjit Kaur Khalra and daughter Navkiran continue to press for answers, keeping the case in public view while highlighting ongoing concerns over past human‑rights abuses in India.

The episode is linked to the broader fallout of Operation Blue Star in 1984, the subsequent assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and the anti‑Sikh riots that followed, all of which intensified the crackdown on Sikh activists and left a legacy of unresolved disappearances.