WASHINGTON, D.C: The Sikh National Member of Parliament, Jagdev Singh Khudian, was forcibly kidnaped and murdered last Friday around 6am by several unknown assailants.
This outrageous murder of a newly elected Sikh official rips Away once and for all the propaganda cover up of India as the world’s largest democracy,” was the general reaction of Sikhs in America,
Mr. Gian Singh Sandhu, International President World Sikh Organization, in a letter to Amnesty International VP Singh urged immediate action in the case.
We at the World Sikh Organization would like to request that you immediately start an investigation into this case. Too many of our people have disappeared. We must do everything possible to help them. With all the glowing reports we hear of you trying to address past grievances, and resurrecting India’s honor, this certainly has come as a shock. There is no room in a modern democracy for so called disappearances.”
“Mr. Khudian, a college classmate and personal friend of mine, was about to issue a call for India to recognize Khalistan, as the free and independent homeland of the Sikhs,” said Aulakh here.
He said that there is a distinct possibility that Khudian was a target of a covert operation by the infamous “Third Agency” Indian intelligence unit that has been used to attack Sikh independence leaders in the past. Former Indian Prime Minister and leader of the Congress I party, Indira Gandhi, founded the Third Agency group in the early 1980’s.
“We appeal to President Bush to the State Department to the US. Congress, to the United Nations, to Amnesty International and to the entire international community to ask India for an explanation for the murder of Jagdev Singh Khudian.”
‘Aulakh noted that the new Indian government headed by V.P. Singh recently repealed the dreaded 59th Amendment which authorized federal police to suspend the civil rights of Indian citizens on the grounds of “internal disturbance,” including the “right” of police to shoot suspects on sight.
He called for V.P. Singh’s government to also repeal the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act 1987 or TADA and other so called Black Laws used to prosecute Sikhs. The TADA has been used as a legal justification for police terror against innocent Sikhs throughout Punjab.
He called) for an immediate grant of amnesty to the 15,000 Sikh political prisoners now being held in Indian jails without trial. Many of these young Sikhs have been held in custody for the past last five years, according to the Punjab Human Rights Organization, based in Chandigarh Punjab.
Commenting on the Punjab crisis, he said, “Sikhs like all peoples have a God given right to freedom. Persecution of the Sikhs has not reached its nadir with the kidnaping of an elected Sikh MP. The only real solution to these human right abuses is Indian recognition of the free and independent status of Khalistan. The Sikhs history clearly shows that they have never submitted to oppression. They will not submit to this tyranny now, nor will they ever submit in the future.
“The Sikh leadership is willing to peacefully negotiate the boundaries of free Khalistan anytime the Indian government is willing to sit down and negotiate.
“This is not a radical proposal, but the human way to head off civil war ‘and yet more bloodshed in Punjab.”
Article extracted from this publication >> January 5, 1990
