JALANDHAR: The All India Sikh Students Federation (Manjit) has appealed to various militant organizations to stop killing Sikhs for at least for one month to expose the centers policy of persecution of the Sikh community.

Bhai Jasbir Singh Ghuman acting president of the AISSF (Manjit) and its general secretary Sarbjit Singh Jammu in press statement issued here said that the number of killings of militants had suddenly increased and it was the right time for introspection as to how and why such a large number of militants were being killed.

The AISSF (Manjit) was of the opinion that the cause of such a large number of militants being killed was the inter-militant group rivalries and their decreasing mass base especially among the Sikhs.

The AISSF felt that the militants could emerge to be a powerful force only if they unite under one organization otherwise they would finish as it happened with the 12 Sikh missiles at the time of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

The militants should learn a lesson from Sikh history in this regard the AISSF suggested.

The party expressed satisfaction over the response to the call for resigning from panchayats received in the districts of Amritsar Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur to support the call of the six Panthic organizations for creation of a separate Sikh sovereign state. It also appreciated the support extended by the farmers to the boycott call of wheat sale in the mandis of Punjab.

The federation condemned the police and the Para-military forces for not allowing Bhai Balwinder Singh Khozipur to harvest wheat from his fields nor allowing the irrigation of fields in Gurdaspur.

It demanded that the rockets imbedded in the walls of the house of Bhai Khozipur be removed immediately because their explosion could cause damage.

Jammu and Ghulman condemned the Punjab government for not releasing Bhai Manjit Singh when all other Sikh leaders had been released. The federation felt that it was shameful that all these leaders were arrested under the same charge before the February 1992 Punjab elections but except Bhai Manjit Singh all others had been released.

Article extracted from this publication >> May 29, 1992