AMRITSAR: The six-member Panthic organization recently decided to drop its probe against Gurcharan Singh Tohra, SGPC president, for his alleged involvement in the Baldev Singh Lang murder case.
Briefing newsmen, the Akali Dal (Baba president Baba Joginder Singh said “let the government and Lang’s family sort out the murder case among themselves. This committee will no longer talk about this case.”
He however, denied that the charge were being dropped under threats from the Babbar international outfit who owned responsibility for the murder.
The Akali Dal (Badal) president, Parash Singh Badal, clarified that his party had never agreed to holding any investigation against Tohra.
The meeting was attended by Akali Dal (Badal) president Singh Badal, Mann Dal chief Simranjit Singh Mann, Babar Dal president Baba Joginder Singh, and the All India Sikh Students Federation chief Manjit Singh.
The Panthic bodies also decided to hire the country’s “best legal brains” to “challenge” the Supreme Court Judgement confirming the death sentence of Jinda and Sukha in the Gen A.S. Vaidya assassination case.
The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) and the Delhi Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee will provide the financial assistance for fighting the “legal battle,” it was announced.
They will also fight this out politically by organizing mass agreement against this sentence, as they felt that Jinda and Sukha had under “religious sentiments,” to avenge the desecration of the golden temple complex in 1984.
The Akali Dal president, Simranjit Singh Mann, while briefing the Press, said Jinda and Sukha had acted out of deep religious “anguish.” They do not have any criminal history prior to this and their act was nothing but “an assertion of the pride of the Sikh community.”
Sikh history abounds in example where the Sikhs have avenged the attack on the Golden Temple, Mann asserted.
It is an accepted practice all over the world that such cases are not judged as ordinary crimes,” and therefore they do not call for capital punishment, Mann said.
Article extracted from this publication >> Aug 7, 1992
