Close to the 100th anniversary of Jallianwala Bagh massacre, the world-renowned humanitarian group Khalsa Aid has brought an exhibition of pictures of victims and survivors of enforced disappearances in India to this part of the globe.

Nearly 1,000 people were killed when troops opened fire on peaceful demonstrators who had assembled at Jallianwala Bagh, a public park in Amritsar, Punjab, to protest draconian laws under British India in April 1919. The bloody episode galvanized the freedom movement that finally brought an end of British occupation of the country in 1947.

Even though the Indian government observed the centenary of Jallianwala Bagh massacre, state violence to suppress any voices of dissent continues in post-British India, despite tall claims of democracy.

Lapata (Missing) And the Left Behind, a collection of pictures by India-based journalist Abhishek Madhukar, retells the stories of thousands of Sikhs who were abducted and killed by Indian police and security forces in Punjab between the 1980s and 1990s. Most of these people remain untraced and presumed dead. There has been no accountability for senior police officers involved in illegal operations to deal with an armed insurgency by Sikh separatists who were seeking an independent homeland.

Sikh men were frequently kidnapped, tortured, and killed in faked encounters with impunity as perpetrators in uniforms were rewarded with out-of-turn promotions and gallantry awards. In almost all cases, the victims' bodies were disposed of unceremoniously.

Among those who suffered this brutality included innocent bystanders, relatives of the militants, and moderate political activists, like Jaswant Singh Khalra. His portrait greet visitors near the entrance of the exhibition that opened on Friday at the Space on Hamilton Street in Vancouver and will continue until Wednesday (May 8).

Khalra’s only fault was that he started an investigation into the enforced disappearances, leading to his abduction and murder in September 1995 by Punjab police. At the time, he was collecting records of those who were cremated secretly in Amritsar—the city that endured Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

The site of 1919 massacre is close to the Golden Temple Complex, the holiest Sikh shrine that was invaded by the Indian army in 1984 to deal with handful of militants who had stockpiled arms inside the place of worship. That ill-conceived 1984 military operation had left many worshippers dead; buildings inside the temple complex were destroyed. This alienated Sikhs from the mainstream and turned many emotional young men into extremists.  

Prior to being kidnapped and murdered, Khalra came to Canada in 1995 to raise international awareness about this issue. Even though he was offered a chance to apply for asylum, true to his convictions, he chose to return and continue his unfinished task. 

Interestingly, Khalra’s grandfather was aboard the Komagata Maru, a Japanese vessel carrying more than 350 Indian passengers in 1914 who were forced to return from Vancouver under a racist immigration law. Much like Jallianwala Bagh incident five years later, the Komagata Maru also served as a catalyst in the history of India’s freedom struggle, leading Indians settled in Canada and U.S. to actively participate in fight against British Empire.

Jatinder Singh, who is the director of Khalsa Aid Canada, told Straight that his organization has been supporting more than 200 families that were effected by police violence in Punjab and eho later decided to document their cases. They did this by collecting their pictures and stories to create a visual record so that the world would learn about their suffering. Singh feels that these stories are still relevant and can be linked to victims of state barbarity anywhere in the world and also to missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada.

The brief description alongside each picture is a telling story of survivors who have been fighting for justice and closure in the absence of any official acknowledgement of the deaths of their loved ones.