NEW YORK, NY: The communal mayhem let lose against Sikh students of the Guru Nanak Engineering College in Bidar, Karanataka evoked strong reactions in community leaders all over the country. The World Sikh News interviewed a number of Sikh opinion makers in order to gauge their reactions to the killings.

Jagjit Singh Mangat the president of Sikh Cultural Society in New York, told the WSN that massacres had caused him much anguish and had further convinced him that Sikh community could never be safe in India. If the Hindus can kill Sikhs even in South India where there has always been peace, then in no other part of the country can they be safe. Only the creation of Khalistan would give the Sikhs a secure place of their own,” he added.

A special diwan was held at the Gurdwara Sahib on Oct 2 to mark the occasion. S. Pargat Singh secretary of the Gurdwara and S. Baldev Singh, the former secretary, also spoke on the occasion.

Pritpal Singh Khalsa Secretary of Sri Guru Singh Sabha Glen Rock, N.J. told the WSN that he was shocked at the dastardly murder of the Sikh students in Bidar. A diwan was held at the Gurdwara Sahib in memory of the victims, Khalsa said. The working committee of the Gurdwara held a special meeting in which the incidents were condemned and a thorough inquiry was demanded. The committee also demanded an adequate compensation for the loss (running into corers of rupees) incurred by the Sikhs in the looting and arson that followed the killings. Copies of the resolution were being sent to U.S. and U.N. authorities, Khalsa said.

S. Satwant Singh Sadhar, President of the Golden State Association in Glen Rock, N.J. said that the attacks on the Sikhs were a part of an organized pattern of threatening, disrupting businesses and killing members of the community out of the Punjab. “A sovereign independent Sikh homeland could be the only guarantee of the safety of the Sikhs, their religion and culture,” Sadhar said. His organization had sent cables to President Reagan, the U.N. secretary general and NJ governor Thomas Kean detailing the atrocities committed against the Sikhs and asking for international intervention to save the Sikhs from persecution in India.

Article extracted from this publication >> October 7, 1988