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Fremont Sikhs mark global rights
day with candle vigil for ’84 victims
Satnam Singh Khalsa
 FREMONT:
In a poignant and determined protest against the failure of the
Indian establishment and the justice dispensing machinery to ensure
justice for the victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh genocidal killings in
India, the sangat of Gurdara Sahib, Fremont marked the International
Human Rights Day on December 10 by lighting candles between 5 pm and
6 pm and drawing attention to the way Sikhs were burnt to death in
thousands in Hindu-majority India.
Killers of the
Sikhs were not only not punished but their leaders even rewarded
with plum posts including federal ministries.
Hundreds of
passers by supported the Sikhs' protest by honking at the Fremont
Blvd. Khalistan Affairs Center's Dr Amarjit Singh said though the
day has been observed ever since its inception in 1948, Sikhs have
been deprived of their rights and meaningful place to exist and
nurture their own destiny in India.
He said India's
insistence on not allowing Amnesty International or panel for
religious freedom to visit the country is proof of the complicity of
the state machinery in machinations against the minorities. He said
the communal elements in India were bent on repeating what they did
on the Bloody Vaisakhi of 1978 but New Delhi will not be able to
keep under its thumb the brave people of
Punjab,
Nagaland,
Mizoram, Jammu
and Kashmir etc for too long.
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“The Sikh Quom shall not rest till it ensures that those who
were involved in the massacre of the Sikhs are punished.” |
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He called for a
coordinated effort at the international level to ensure that the
world knows the Sikhs’ story.
Bibi Harkeertan
kaur and Poonam Kaur said Sikhs have never got justice and have no
hope of getting it under the current Indian dispensation and they
must try for their own independent identity.
Amanbir Kaur, a
resident of Fremont and student of Ohlone College said the candle
vigil was proof that we shall not forget and we will tell the world
that what happened to the Sikhs in
India
was no less evil than what happened to the Jews. She said the Sikhs
of Punjab must know that we are very much with them.
American
Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee Coordinator Dr. Pritpal Singh said New
Delhi was following an approach no different from the Nazis and the
US government must end all aid to India just as it has done in case
of Cuba and Iran.
 He
said a united Sikh Quom will not find it difficult to defeat the
designs of the dehdhari gurus in
Punjab.
Bhai Ram Singh,
member of the Supreme Council of Gurdwara Sahib, Fremont, said the
quom shall not rest till it ensures that those who were involved in
the massacre of the Sikhs are punished.
Bibi Sarabjeet
Kaur Cheema, senior vice president and human rights activist who was
among those in the forefront in organizing this program, said the
policemen and the politicians who were involved in atrocities
against the Sikhs shall be put in the dock.
Main organizer
of the event, Khalsa Chetna Lehar chief Bhai Karnail Singh Khalsa
said Sikhs are a peace loving Nation and have Sarbat Da Bhala as
their motto. He called upon all right thinking people to join hands
with the Sikhs in the cause of justice.
16
December 2009
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