Chandigarh, Oct. 31: Most of them still suffer from depression, nearly half have forgotten how to sleep without fear and almost a sixth thought of taking their lives.

The families of those who were allegedly abducted, tortured, killed and then cremated as unidentified bodies by Punjab police during the height of the militancy in the state have not yet got over their trauma, says a report.

The report is based on a study in Amritsar by the Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), a co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, and the Bellevue-New York University School of Medicine Programme for Survivors of Torture.

During the survey, in May and June this year, 130 people were interviewed to gauge the physical and psychological impact of human rights violations on families of victims.

An earlier finding, by human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, had revealed that between 1984 and 1995, security forces abducted, tortured and killed more than 25,000 people in fake encounters. Khalra, who was picked up from his home in Amritsar by Punjab police commandos on September 6, 1995, said the police did not return the bodies to the families, but instead illegally cremated them or threw them into canals.

The CBI, which probed the case, has confirmed 2,097 cases of illegal cremations in Amritsar district alone.

The Committee for Information and Initiative on Punjab (CIIP), whose efforts led the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to direct the state to pay Rs 2.5 lakh as compensation to 109 victims’ families, says knowledge about the victims’ fate is essential. It would “ensure that such abuses do not recur”, says Ram Narayan Kumar of CIIP.

The PHR-Bellevue survey reveals that a majority of victims’ family members were harassed and assaulted. Sixty-three per cent of the 130 interviewed reported having been arrested and 48 per cent said they were tortured.

The survey reveals that 73.2 per cent of the survivors still suffer from depression, 65.2 per cent show symptoms of anxiety, 49.1 per cent have sleep disorder, 16.1 per cent developed suicidal tendencies and 8 per cent took to alcohol or drugs.