PATIALA: Simranjit Singh Mann chief of his faction of the Akali Dal Sunday urged the Indian Central government to call off the February 19 polls in India’s Punjab state saying there could be post poll “communal tension and bloodshed.”
Mann told reporters at his house at Kila Harnam Singh near Fatehgarh Sahib in Patiala district where he was under house arrest that the poll would lead to civil war bloodshed and communal division of people.
He said earlier efforts to bridge the gap between communities would be wasted as these elections could create similar a situation as had prevailed in 1984.
In 1984 Indian army troops had stormed the holiest Sikh shrine the Golden Temple to flush out militants -an act widely believed to have later led to the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as retaliation by Sikh assassination case but later a quitted.
Mann said he was first arrested and extended from Ludhiana district and late put under house arrest in his home village Saturday night.
Now a hart line Sikh politician Mann also advocates “Khalistan” —a Sikh homeland — and has openly said that militants should not be left out of any negotiated settlement on Punjab.
Article extracted from this publication >> February 14, 1992
