Dear Prime Minister Gowda:
Three months ago, after your induction as Prime Minister, I wrote you a letter of congratulations along with suggestions to move the Indian government forward towards true democratic reform. The Sikh nation was hopeful that as a man of demonstrated character, you could bring an end to the Indian government’s oppressive nature and peacefully free Khalistan. However, in the intervening months there was no change and India’s campaign of ethnic cleansing continues. Persecution and oppression remain hallmarks of the government’s treatment of Sikhs, Let me share with you a few examples:
- In the early July, your government savagely beat Dr. Jagjit Singh Chohan while trying to receive emergency medical treat ment. The 68yearold amputee from U.K. was savagely beaten by approximately 20 Indian government Officials from IB, RAW and Immigration services. His beard was yanked, he was kicked viciously, his testicles were vised and his ankle, which had recently been broken, was also kicked repeatedly. Is this the kind of cruel and cowardly behavior you want the Gowda government to be remembered for?
- American citizen Balbir ‘singh Dhillon has finally been released on bail and this is a positive development. However, the fabricated charges against him should also be dropped. A domestic human rights group launched an investigation into the charges that Dhillon was carrying a kilo of black RDX explosive in his car. Their report concluded that “Balbir Singh is innocent in and all charges against him [should] be dropped immediately. He should be allowed to return to his country.” According to the report, the motivation behind the charges was “to keep the s r of Sikh militancy alive.” Mr, Dhillon’s arrest was instill a fear psychosis among Sikh Diaspora. This will not work and we demand Mr. Dhillon’s be dropped and he be allowed to come back to the U.S. 3. Human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra remains in custody. According to his wife, he is in IB custody. If India is the democracy it claims to be, no person should be arrested and tortured simply because they compile evidence of illegal government killings. Khalra’s report, documenting the killing and cremation of over 25,000 Sikh youth, led to his arrest and torture. He should be released immediately and guilty police officials should be punished.
- On July the Supreme Court of India described the government’s policy of killing and surreptitiously cremating Sikhs as “worse than a genocide.” It is official, India now joins Nazi Germany’s reputation of systematically killing and are mating unwanted ethnicities. As the Supreme Court Justices stated, “We shudder to think of such a thing happening in a democracy.”
- Sending K.P.S, Gill to the Olympics was an absolute insult to Sikhs everywhere. This butcher of over 30,000 Sikhs should be charged and convicted for genocide, instead, you have hailed him as a hero and sent him to Atlanta. Upon arrive in in New York, no airline would fly him to Atlanta, he was escorted by train under armed guard. He could not even go out in public for fear of being beaten up as had occurred in Brussels last March. Making KP.S. Gillapart of India’s Olympic delegation shows the bank ruptcy of India’s moral character.
- On August 27, a Delhi court convicted 93 persons to seven and a half years rigorous incarceration and fines of Rs. 5,000 each for their role in the 1984 Delhi riots. However presiding Judge Dhingra was dismayed by the fact that “those who engineered the riots and made these people [those who were convicted] their tools are still at large.” He referred to the police and “their political masters” as the “real culprits” stating that “the same standards of law should have been applied to unearth the criminal conspiracy of these mass murders which were applied in Mrs. Gandhi’s murder case.” Judge Dhingra all but said that a different set of laws apply to Sikhs. Thus where Kehar Singh was hanged for killing Indira Gandhi, Congress leaders, including government ministers and parliamentary deputies, are not even charged for murdering thousands of Sikhs.
- Your government touts that TADA is revoked, and yet there are close to 70,000 Sikhs still detained under TADA. As a government official, you must realize that a law is not revoked so long as people remain detained under that law. Those still held under TADA are not criminals, but prisoners of conscience and they must be released immediately.
- As the Supreme Court described, India’s “worse than a genocide” policy must end. Those responsible, both directly and indirectly, must be brought to justice. At a minimum, that means that Punjab police officials must be charged with murder, this includes former D.G. K.P.S. Gill.
No other group paid a higher price to end British rule than the Sikhs. Over 80% of those who were hanged in the independence struggle were Sikhs. 49 years of Indian ‘democracy’ insults the memories of those who sacrificed themselves a half century ago. The Sikh Nation will not let their deaths, and all those who have died since, be in vain.
You know the history of the Sikhs in post British India, we have always resisted central government rule over our land. We never signed India’s constitution and we will never trust a system of government that desecrated our holiest of holies, the Golden Temple, and continues a campaign of terror which has left over 150,000 of our people dead.
The Sikhs recite the words Raj Kare Ga Khalsa every morning and evening. “The Khalsa Shall Rule.” As history has shown, the Sikh nation will never submit to Delhi rule. We remain commit ted to the liberation of Khalistan. History remembers the peace makers; and so I encourage you to join us in creating an unprecedented era of peace and prosperity for all nations on the subcontinent by ending the Indian government’s occupation of Khalistan.
Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh Council of Khalistan, Washington, DC.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 11, 1996
