Alabama — We are writing to you about the human rights violations being committed against the Sikhs. The Sikhs of India are gentle, God fearing and hard working. They have converted India from a famine stricken nation to a food exporting country.
The Indian Government’s policies toward the Sikhs have forced them into the headlines of the world’s newspapers.
As most know, during the first week of June 1984, the Indian army attacked the Golden Temple in the name of clearing out al legged terrorists who it claimed were hiding there. Hundreds of innocent people (children, old people and pilgrims) were killed in the attack.
The Indian army and, police unleashed a reign of terror, political suppression, murder and torture on the Sikhs.
Sikh youths of 15 to 25 years of age were snatched from the villages and dragged behind army vehicles until they were almost dead. Then they were gathered in a camp and blown to death by bombs. The whereabouts of thousands of Sikh youths are still unknown.
The government of India has imposed a very strict censorship. But fortunately, a few horrible tales about the abduction, torture, inhumane treatment, deaths and missing Sikh youths have leaked to the Western press.
The human rights of the Sikhs are being violated on a grand scale, and they are being treated as guilty until proven innocent by the same government which has lectured to the world for the last 25 years about its superior morality and human rights record.
The real truth of this human tragedy is still not known to the world.
Furthermore, the government of India has not been able to catch the real culprits responsible for the bomb blasts of May 1013 in Delhi. As a result, calls for the “liquidation” of the “terrorists’ meanings all Sikhs are being heard in Delhi and the police have already started to pick up Sikhs at random.
We, the Sikhs in this country, and fair-minded people of the world are very much concerned about the safety, welfare and human rights of the Sikhs in India.
We request that American citizens help in the protection of human rights in India so that justice and freedom can prevail.
Please write or call your representative in Washington about the human rights of the Sikhs and help us to prevent the tragedy of another Buchenwald or Auschwitz.
Mohinder S. Ghuman, Jaspal S. Paul,
H.S. Kahlon,
- S. Khalsa,
1172 16th Avenue South.
(We are reproducing the letter that appeared in The Birmingham News on the request of some readers).
Article extracted from this publication >> August 30, 1985
