NEW DELHI: January 6 1989 Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh embraced martyrdom today at 8:00.a.m.
They walked defiantly to the gallows looking blissfully composed and dignified where Indias official hang men Kalu and Fakira were waiting for them History will record their execution as an irrefutable evidence of Indias rabid Hindu theocracy in which other religious minorities must either slavishly submit to the Hindu masters or suffer strangulation at the gallows.
Kehar Singh and Satwant Singh were executed in Delhi s Tihar jail. India’s official hangmen Kalu and Fakira have been living here for two months as lawyers fought increasingly desperate battle to stave off the executions.
The two hangmen tested the scaffolds on Thursday using sand-bags to test the trapdoors and six meter (19Foot) ropes. A group of 12 witnesses attended the executions alter which the bodies were left hinging for minutes before being pronounced dead.
In a telephonic message to World Sikh News M.C. .R.S. Sodhi added we have done our best. It was a very bitter legal battle and I have lost it. 1 wish the government had not been so adamant and taken the opportunity provided by the Supreme Court to commute the sentences of Sawant Singh and Kehar Singh Two lives need not have been lost because of sheer vendetta. . it was Indira Gandhi’s order to the any to attack the Golden Temple that triggered her assassination More than 6000 people including Innocent devotees trapped inside the vast complex were killed in the attack More than 4000 people mostly in Delhi were slaughtered in a wave of anti-Sikh violence after she was killed. Few of those responsible have been brought to trial a continuing source of outrage among Sikhs. In Punjab a spokesman for one of the Sikh militant organizations said the Government should be ready for the consequences The hangings were expected to spark trouble from Sikh: separatists fighting for independent homeland in Punjab.
We will set the nation on fire militants declared in a message sent to reporters in Amritsar the Sikh holy city.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 7, 1994
