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OUTJUSTICED-2: Documentary on Human Rights and Impunity in Punjab

The online news portal Sikh Siyasat has released a documentary named “OUTJUSTICED-2” which exposes the human rights violations being carried out by the state in Punjab and the corresponding impunity of those who commit these violations.

OUTJUSTICED 2 is the second documentary from a series titled “OutJusticed – the untold stories” focusing on the denial of justice to victims of human rights violations in Punjab. OUTJUSTICED 2 concerns the Punjab Police firing incident of 2012 in which a Sikh student, Bhai Jaspal Singh was killed in Gurdaspur.

Some people have been ‘outjusticed’ (pushed out of the ambit of the circle of justice) by the system and the OutJusticed documentary series is an attempt to document and tell the stories of those people. Certain events, though happening at different times, can only be better understood in their mutual context. The incident of police firing in Gurdaspur did not emerge out of a vacuum; it has a political context just like the human rights abuses in Punjab have their root in political questions related to Sikhs and the Punjab.

As regards human rights abuses in Punjab, there are three basic facts: firstly that these abuses are committed to crush the political assertion of the Sikhs; secondly, the whole state system, including the judiciary, stand in complicity – especially through the policy of impunity; and thirdly, that this is not a thing of the past as it continues even to the present times. The case of Jaspal Singh Gurdaspur has emerged as a ‘witness’ to these facts.

This documentary was screened in Chandigarh on 3 September, 2016. It was screened at various places in England, including universities, from March to May 2017. A special screening of this documentary was held at Bangalore on 29 April, 2017. The documentary was screened at more than a dozen places in England, including various colleges and universities.

A special screening of this documentary was also held in Manitoba University in Canada in August 2017.