Ac­cord­ing to the lat­est re­ports avail­able at this hour, as many as 23 Sikhs have been killed in the mil­i­tant at­tack on the Gur­d­wara Sahib in Kabul. The names of those killed in the at­tack in­clude many women. Many more are fight­ing for life in hos­pi­tals. WSN re­sources be­lieve that the num­ber may cross 30 as many are crit­i­cal in the hos­pi­tals.

IN A COW­ARDLY AT­TACK, 4 GUN­MEN, ARMED WITH KALISH­NAKOVS,   sur­rep­ti­tiously en­tered the Gur­d­wara Paathshahi Satvin -Guru Har Rai Sahib in the early morn­ing hours of the morn­ing when the 150-strong Sikh con­gre­ga­tion was en­gaged in lis­ten­ing to the Kir­tan -mu­si­cal ren­di­tion of the Shabads from Guru Granth Sahib.

Speak­ing on the phone line to this writer from Pe­shawar, Cha­ran Singh, who re­cently came from Kabul to Pak­istan af­ter his brother -Har­jit Singh, was killed by the mil­i­tants said, “there is no hope for a nor­mal life for Sikhs and Hin­dus in Afghanistan. The in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity, the UN­HCR and the United Na­tions must act with god­speed.”

“I ap­peal to the Sikh lead­er­ship across the world to take care of the few hun­dreds of the poor­est of the poor Afghan Sikhs, who are still lan­guish­ing in the en­vi­rons of his­tor­i­cal Gur­d­waras of Kabul with nowhere to go. They do not live in their homes and they have no place to cre­mate their dead ones.”

“There is no hope for a nor­mal life for Sikhs and Hin­dus in Afghanistan. The in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity, the UN­HCR and the United Na­tions must act with god­speed.”

Cha­ran Singh, An Afghan Sikh, now liv­ing in Pe­shawar

Echo­ing his an­guish at the at­tack on Sikhs in Afghanistan, co-founder of the Sikh Re­search In­sti­tute, au­thor and pub­lic or­a­tor, Harinder Singh says, “We are part of the prob­lem too for not pro­vid­ing any con­certed, de­lib­er­a­tive, and sus­tain­able planned so­lu­tion that in­te­grates es­tab­lish­ment re­al­i­ties with ac­tivist out­cries.”

The World Sikh News is in pos­ses­sion of a load of gory pic­tures and videos of the ghastly tragedy but has con­sciously de­cided not to pub­lish them. We are shar­ing a video which ex­plains how it all started.

 

As per the lat­est re­ports, quoted by press agency AP, 25 Sikhs have been killed in the at­tack which lasted for more than five hours and the per­pe­tra­tors of the das­tardly killings of the ISIL -the armed wing of the ISIS, which has claimed re­spon­si­bil­ity for the at­tack, have also been killed by the Afghan forces.

As per the fears of those in the hos­pi­tal, the to­tal num­ber may cross 30, as more than 15 are very crit­i­cal.

The Granthi -the ex­po­nent of the Gu­ru’s Shabad and the Kir­taniya -the bard who ren­di­tions the Gu­ru’s Shabad -the re­vealed word of the Almighty to mu­si­cal tones to the con­gre­ga­tion, was also amongst those killed.  The names of those killed in­clude the fol­low­ing:

Nir­mal Singh Granthi, Dhi­man Singh, Av­tar Singh, Kul­tar Singh, Harik Singh, Iqbal Singh, Kul­winder Singh, Jag­tar Singh, Bha­gat Singh, Mon Singh, Ji­van Singh, Shankar Singh, Parmeet Singh Khoshal, Bibi Paramjit Kaur, Bibi Sur­jit Kaur, Bibi Surila Kaur, Sar­dar Singh, Sur­jan Singh, Bibi Tania Kaur. Bibi Jag­tar Kaur, Bibi Dil­jeet Kaur, Bibi Har­jeet Kaur and Bibi Jai Kaur.

“We are part of the prob­lem too for not pro­vid­ing any con­certed, de­lib­er­a­tive, and sus­tain­able planned so­lu­tion that in­te­grates es­tab­lish­ment re­al­i­ties with ac­tivist out­cries.”

Harinder Singh, au­thor and pub­lic or­a­tor, co-founder Sikh Re­search In­sti­tute

Though one child is be­lieved to be have been killed in the at­tack, a large num­ber of them who were play­ing in the Gur­d­wara Com­plex ran for safety and saved them­selves.

World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Canada Pres­i­dent Tejin­der Singh Sidhu ex­press­ing shock at the in­ci­dent said, “to­day’s at­tack on Gur­d­wara Guru Har Rai in Kabul and the bru­tal mur­der of so many Sikhs is a hor­rific act of ter­ror, but sadly not one that was un­ex­pected.”

We call on the Cana­dian gov­ern­ment to ex­pe­dite the pro­cess­ing of their refugee ap­pli­ca­tions and al­low the Sikhs and Hin­dus re­main­ing in Afghanistan to be di­rectly spon­sored by Cana­di­ans

Tejin­der Singh Sidhu, Pres­i­dent, World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Canada

It should be placed on record that the WSO con­tin­ues to as­sist the ef­forts to re­set­tle some of these Afghan Sikh and Hindu fam­i­lies to Canada, which were be­gun by Al­berta MLA Man­meet Singh Bhullar be­fore his tragic death in 2015.

“We call on the Cana­dian gov­ern­ment to ex­pe­dite the pro­cess­ing of their refugee ap­pli­ca­tions and al­low the Sikhs and Hin­dus re­main­ing in Afghanistan to be di­rectly spon­sored by Cana­di­ans,” urged the World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Canada in its press re­lease.

“There is no hope for a nor­mal life for #Sikhs and #Hin­dus in #Afghanistan. The in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity, the #UN­HCR and the #Unit­ed­Na­tions must act with god­speed.”#Kab­u­lAt­tack #At­tack­onGur­d­wara #Afghan­Sikhshttps://​t.co/​p6HDQy7bc7

— The World Sikh News (@World­SikhNews1) March 25, 2020

World Sikh News em­pathises with the fam­i­lies of those killed. WSN ex­horts the Sikh lead­er­ship, es­pe­cially the pros­per­ous Afghan Sikh com­mu­nity rep­re­sen­ta­tives world­wide to not waste a sin­gle day and en­sure that those fam­i­lies that are still stuck in Afghanistan are fully sup­ported and brought out to a peace­ful place.