NEW YORK: Two young Sikhs, Ranjit Singh Gill and Sukhvinder Singh Sandhu, who were arrested from a New Jersey gasoline station, have been shifted to a high security correctional center in New York. They were arrested on the basis of a diplomatic note from the Government of India which charged Sukhvinder

with masterminding the conspiracy to assassinate Gen. Vaidya and Ranjit with alleged hand in the murder of Lalit Makan, a member of the Indian Parliament in July, 1985.

Ranjit Singh Gill is the General Secretary of All India Sikh Student Federation and Sukhvinder Singh is a senior member of the Federation. According to the Federation sources, Indian government is systematically framing Federation leaders in criminal cases so as to make it ineffective. The sources pointed out that Indian police have already arrested persons allegedly involved in Makan murder case and Vaidya assassination and the Central Bureau of Investigation found no connection of the two arrested Federation leaders with these murders. C.B.I. learnt from the Chandigarh scandal of issuing forged passports that the two had left India with forged passports. Sikh young men are leaving India to save themselves from the police policy of killing them in fake encounters and some are forced to resort to procuring forged documents to save their lives. This does not mean they are involved in conspiracies and murders, say the sources.

Meanwhile the Acting President of the A.I.S.S.F., Bhai Gurjit Singh, has sent an appeal to the US. government urging it not to hand over Ranjit and Sukhvinder to the Indian authorities as they would either be killed by the police or sentenced to death in framed up murder cases. He has also sent communications to International Amnesty and other Human Rights organizations to save the lives of these two innocent young men.

Bhai Gurjit Singh has also made an impassioned appeal to Sikhs living abroad, particularly to Sikhs in America, to make every possible effort to save these younger from falling in the “bloodstained? hands of the Indian government.

Article extracted from this publication >>  June 5, 1987