I came to this country in 1963 and 1 am a Director of a substantial Textile company with Fac tory premises in the West Midlands. I have no criminal convictions and have recently been granted British Citizenship. It took: nearly 2% years for the Home Office to grant my Application and when it was announced that my Certificate of Registration as a British Citizen had been issued there was adverse comment by the Indian Government who described me as a Sikh terrorist.

I am a practicing Sikh and as such I believe in the Sikh philosophy of universal brotherhood love and peace. I neither advocate nor condone terrorism which is alien to the Sikh people. The Sikh ‘community in Britain is a shining example of how a community can peacefully integrate and walk with pride and dignity.

I was selected to be the Prime Minister of the Khalistan Government in June of last year. Advocate the establishment of an independent Sikh State by peaceful means and I have a lifetime ‘commitment to preserve the basic human rights of the Sikh people to self-determination and cultural and religious freedom.

‘At the time of my being granted citizenship I was already a stateless person. I advertised my renunciation of Indian Citizenship in the Birmingham Evening Mail of the 18 November 1985. The Indian Government’s character assassination of British Sikhs as “terrorists” is a smear campaign to damage their good reputation. The truth is that the Indian Authorities, having created a state of affairs which denies to Sikhs living in India freedom of speech, are now seeking to interfere with the freedom of Sikhs living outside India.

India claims to be a democracy and yet seeks to make adverse ‘comment on the activities of respectable hard working citizens of another country. I suggest to Rajiv Gandhi that before he calls anybody a terrorist he should look at his own record. He and his Government were responsible for the genocide in October 1984 of 10,000 Sikhs in New Delhi and for the massacre of countless thousands in the Golden Temple and other parts of the Punjab. The Western World should ask why it is that Rajiv Gandhi is continuing to stall any enquiries into those killings.

Gurmej Singh Gill Prime Minister

Article extracted from this publication >> January 10, 1986