VANCOUVER: The ISYF (Int. Sikh Youth Federation) doesn’t have the services of Sherlock Holmes or Hercules Poirot so the identity of the person responsible for downing Air India Flight 182 May elude them. But the organization steadfastly claims that it wasn’t a member of their group.
The Canadian office of the ISYF held a press conference July 26 to discount reports in the Canadian press that Manjit Singh purportedly an ISYF member has “confessed” to Bombay police his part in the fatal air crash.
As W.S.N. has frequently reported, the Indian security forces have no compunction about the methods they use to exact a “confession”. The Canadian paper, “The Province”, says “Indian police are turning the screws on Manjit Singh to discover more about the operations and alliances of the federation and other militant groups who operate out of Canada and Pakistan.” The phrase may have more truth than hyperbole.
In another article the paper says; “Singh’s confession is the result Of virtually nonstop questioning over six days and it is continuing.” Later, they report the words of “a top Bombay Police officer,” who said, of Singh “He is a smooth fellow, he is very well trained. But he is breaking down. We’re doing it gently.”
Right. The Indian govt’s forces are experts at the “genue art of torture”.
The ISYF, disavowing ‘terrorists’ and ‘terrorist activities’ said in their written press statement signed by Ranjit Singh Dosanjh of ISYF Vancouver, Sukhminder Singh Cheema acting vice president ISYF, Ranjit Singh Khalsa gen. secretary ISYF and Kanwaljit Singh president ISYF; Surrey , that, “We, the executive committee of ISYF would like to set the media straight on the latest events the Manjit Singh arrest in India, and the fatal crash of Air India Flight 182. IS YF stands for justice, peace and freedom, We seek an end to the genocide of Sikhs in India and we condemn terrorism of any sort. Our biggest struggle is to bring to the free word’s attention our fundamental right to a democratic sovereign Sikh state to be known as Khalistan, and we would never risk this for terrorism.
Presently India is engaged in a ruthless manipulation game to defame our just demand for political freedom. Through it’s propaganda machinery India is trying to portray the Sikh nation as a terrorist nation. When in fact, Sikhism believes in democracy, not terrorism for any solution.
No doubt Air India flight 182 was a result of terrorism, We wish to clarify that our organization is not involved and would not permit anyone responsible for this heinous crime to become a member of our group.
Manjit Singh, or whoever this person ig, that the Indian authorities have in their custody is not a member Of our organization nor do we have any knowledge who this person is. We have no record of him in our files.
We wish to inform the media to not play host to India false propaganda.
“India’s intelligence is well aware of the activities of Sikhs living abroad, they very well know that support and sympathy was generating amongst the Canadian Community. To destroy our image, we believe, India is the one, who through its agents, planted a bomb aboard Air India flight 182. Today we wish to tell the free world Sikhs are not terrorists and we condemn this brutal crime, where 329 innocent victims were killed.
“Our sympathy and sorrow goes out to the family and friends of those victims, who have to relive this again.
“This was not a crime of passion. Rather it was a vicious crime that will always hold a dark cloud over our community-until the mystery is solved and the Indian government has been proved guilty.
“We are convinced no freedom loving Sikh who is struggling to create an Independent democratic Sikh homeland could ever do such a crime,
Rather the Indian Government had much more motive to bomb this plane and now torture or plant someone to spread false information, Such as Manjit Singh. “Recently a poster published in the “Province” Newspaper showed six members of ISYF, We wish to clarify that these Sikhs were not terrorists. They have never been involved in anything illegal in Canada, nor did they have any criminal record.
These brave souls could not stand idly by while their families were being butchered at the hands of the Indian Government. They went to India on their own to liberate their homeland.
It is notable here that Amnesty International and Asia Watch have documented thousands of cases in which victims were raped, tortured and killed while in police custody. Where there is no justice these victims took it upon themselves to join the peoples mass movement to liberate their homeland and free their brothers and sisters.
We end here with sorrow in our heart for all those victims of Air India 182, in which the majority incidentally where Sikhs. We wish to remind the media about a book called Soft Target in which the Indian government has been indicted as being involved in masterminding this fatal crash. Finally we condemn recent articles published in newspapers indicating ISYF involvement and we wish to clearly state the fact that these are fabricated stories by the Indian Govt.
Article extracted from this publication >> Aug 7, 1992
