AMRITSAR: The police thwarted the move of the six panthic organizations to hold a dharna outside the Deputy Commissioner’s office here to protest against the killing of innocent villagers in the Behla encounter on June 9.

The police swung into action and a large number of Akali Dal (Mann) activists, including the party’s general secretary, Ram Singh, was arrested from his residence located near the Golden Temple.

The district authorities deployed adequate security forces and police on the roads leading to the DC’s office and did not allow the Akali Dal (Mann) activists to proceed.

The Sikh Students Federation (Mehta-Chawla) condemned the police for arresting the Akali activists, Its general secretary, Amrik Singh Mukatsar, said that to protest in a peaceful and democratic way was the right of the masses but the authorities prevented the Akalis from staging a dhama by arresting them. Such actions, Mukatsar said, would force the people to adopt “undemocratic” ways,

The SSF said that a big convention against the police repression would be held at Behla on June 25 in which all the six panthic organizations would participate.

The Akali Dal (Badal) condemned the arrests of panches and sarpanches for campaigning for the resignations.

In a joint statement issued here, Parkash Singh Majitha, senior vice-president of the Akali Dal (Badal), Major Singh Uboke, acting president of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) and Manjit Singh Calcutta, general secretary of the party, said that the arrests of sarpanches and panches was an “undemocratic” action by the government,

Such action of the government “ridiculed” the democratic set-up of the country. This was nothing but the murder of democracy, they said. They said that the intention of the government was to “humiliate the sarpanches and panches,

The meeting of the interim committee of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) scheduled for June 23 has been cancelled on the instructions from the SGPC chief, Gurcharan Singh Tohra.

Article extracted from this publication >> July 3, 1992