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Sikh temple raid shadows Belgian
royal visit to India
Tejinder Singh
 BRUSSELS:
King Albert II of Belgium will go to India on a nine-day state visit
beginning November 3, accompanied by Queen Paola, Foreign Minister
Karel De Gucht, and top businessmen and academics, according to
sources in the Royal Palace in Brussels. The royal visit comes on
the heels of raids last month from Belgian police on 19 houses in
Brussels’s Vilvoorde region including the Gurdwara at Tubize, just
outside
Brussels.
The Sikh
community expressed outrage at the handling of the affair at the
Sikh Temple, alleging that the police went in with shoes on and
forced the reader of the Holy Book to abandon the continued recital
that was going on to observe 300 years anniversary of the Holy
Book.
Mejindarpal Kaur,
legal director of United Sikhs, a coalition of organisations and
individuals said, “United Sikhs and the Sikh community are appalled
by the police’s insensitivity in its actions during the raid ...
United Sikhs is writing to the Belgian prime minister, seeking a
full investigation of the incident, an apology from Belgian police
and changes to the police procedures when handling places of worship
of all communities.”
Resham Singh,
President of Gurdwara Guru Nanak Sahib, Vilvorde said: “Our Gurdwara
is a place of worship open to all. We do not inquire about the
immigration status of the people coming to worship at the Gurdwara.
Police should have been more sensitive during the raid; to enter a
gurdwara with shoes on and to further stop an akhand paath is a
serious violation of the religious rights of the Sikh community.”
Sunil Prasad,
President of the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin
regretted that police should have shown respect to the sanctity of
the holy place while making arrests as this has upset many Indians
in
Belgium.
But at other places the raids yielded some major suspects, according
to reliable sources, and police also found at least 200 people in
Belgium unlawfully and living in inhuman conditions. They were
shacked up in safe houses, used as places of hiding for many
illegals.
The migrants,
mostly from
Punjab, had been
brought to Belgium through Moscow, Assistant prosecutor Tim de Wolf
said. “We found 24 people crammed inside one windowless room,
measuring around 12-square metres,” he said. De Wolf, who
investigated the racket for a year, said the ring was believed to be
capable of smuggling thousands of people into Britain every year.
The Indian
embassy in
Brussels refused
to comment on the incident as R K Goel told this journalist, “The
ministry is looking into the matter so we can not comment on the
subject.” Prasad, President, GOPIO, said that all those paperless
Indians who have been caught and detained by the Belgian police are
economic migrants and were seeking better future in Europe. These
misguided youths are the victims of human trafficking gangs in India
and in Europe and these traffickers must be dealt with without any
leniency.
“One of the main
reasons why economic migrants from
India want to
migrate toUK is because UK is more friendly than many countries in
Europe with respect to giving asylum. Also, because of a large
Indian community in UK, it is natural that these immigrants want to
come to UK and seek better life,” he said.
Prasad, who is
also the Secretary General of the Brussels Europe India Chamber of
Commerce (EICC) said that as a result of economic slowdown there
shall be more temptation from people from developing countries like
India to reach Europe’s shore for greener future. He however
suggested that the European Union in cooperation with the Government
of India and the state of
Punjab should
launch an awareness campaign programme in Punjab to tell the youth
about the dangers of becoming victim of the unscrupulous gangs.
Tejinder Singh
is the editor of New Europe-the European Weekly and member of the
International Press Association. About a month back, he was
instrumental in raising the issue of the Turban ban in France by
asking pointed questions during the joint press conference of French
President Nicholas Sarkozy and Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan
Singh at Marseilles, France. World Sikh News is pleased to announce
that Tejinder Singh’s reportage from Brussels will regularly appear
in the World Sikh News.
5 November
2008
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