At a well-at­tended Jor Mela con­fer­ence at Fate­hgarh Sahib, held to pay glow­ing trib­utes to Mata Gu­jri and younger sons -Sahibzades of Tenth Mas­ter Guru Gob­ind Singh, the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal (Am­rit­sar) and Dal Khalsa raised sub­stan­tive is­sues con­cern­ing the Sikhs and the po­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ments in In­dia.

LEAD­ERS OF SHI­RO­MANI AKALI DAL (AM­RIT­SAR) AND DAL KHALSA at their Sha­heedi Jor Mela con­fer­ence at Fate­hgarh Sahib eu­lo­gized the supreme sac­ri­fices of Sahibzada Fateh Singh and Sahibzada Zo­rawar Singh to up­hold the truth, right­eous­ness and prin­ci­ples of re­li­gion.

Sig­nif­i­cantly, the two Sahibzadas laid down their lives to up­hold the right to fol­low the re­li­gion of their own choice, which led to their mar­tyr­dom.  Even af­ter four cen­turies, the sit­u­a­tion in In­dia still shows the kind of re­li­gious in­tol­er­ance which pre­vailed when the Gu­ru’s il­lus­tri­ous 7-year-old and 9-year-old sons were bricked alive at Sirhind, the then cap­i­tal of Hin­dus­tan.

“The spirit of mar­tyr­dom ex­em­pli­fied by great Sikh Gu­rus and Sahibzadas serves as a bea­con light for Sikhs to stand up to tyranny and sub­ju­ga­tion of suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments over the last 550 years of Sikh his­tory.”

Sim­ran­jit Singh Mann, Pres­i­dent, Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal (Am­rit­sar)

Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal (Am­rit­sar) pres­i­dent Sim­ran­jit Singh Mann said the spirit of mar­tyr­dom ex­em­pli­fied by great Sikh Gu­rus and Sahibzadas serves as a bea­con light for Sikhs to stand up to tyranny and sub­ju­ga­tion of suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments over the last 550 years of Sikh his­tory.  “We will not al­low the Naren­dra Modi gov­ern­ment to ride rough-shod of the mi­nori­ties in In­dia and will fight back in the same spirit as the sons of Guru Gob­ind Singh.”

Join­ing the coun­try­wide de­mand of with­drawal of CAA and NRC, the speak­ers fired salvos against Naren­dra Modi gov­ern­ment of In­dia for en­act­ing di­vi­sive and dan­ger­ous law. They said the pre­sent-day gov­ern­ment of In­dia was drag­ging the sit­u­a­tion into an­other Emer­gency in the coun­try. “In fact, it is al­ready an un­de­clared emer­gency,” roared Dal Khalsa spokesper­son Kan­war Pal Singh.

The press re­lease is­sued on the oc­ca­sion said that the two par­ties, “stood rock be­hind the stu­dents of Jamia Milia, Ali­garh Mus­lim Uni­ver­sity and other uni­ver­si­ties, who had taken to streets to protest against the fas­cist poli­cies of the Modi-Shah Bhar­tiya Janata Party gov­ern­ment. Sim­ran­jit Singh sang praises of the boys and girls who are bear­ing the brunt of state re­pres­sion in Delhi and other parts of the coun­try.

Tak­ing the Union gov­ern­ment of In­dia to task for not re­leas­ing the Sikh pris­on­ers, Mann said the Modi-Shah duo was play­ing a dou­ble game with Sikhs. He said that the State of Pun­jab Chief Min­is­ter Cap­tain Amarinder Singh was mis­lead­ing the peo­ple of Pun­jab by fail­ing to pros­e­cute Sukhbir-Saini-Sauda Sadh trio in the blas­phemy and des­e­cra­tion cases of Barghari Kalan.

“The Tenth Guru sac­ri­ficed his sons for the sake of the Panth but to­day’s Sikh lead­ers were sac­ri­fic­ing Pan­thic in­ter­ests for the sake of their sons.”

Kan­war Pal Singh, Spokesper­son, Dal Khalsa

Dal Khalsa chief Harpal Singh Cheema also blamed the In­dian gov­ern­ment for de­ceiv­ing the Sikhs. “On one hand, they is­sued no­ti­fi­ca­tion for the re­lease of eight Sikh pris­on­ers and did not re­lease any pris­oner, while on the other, the au­thor­i­ties gave am­ple time to the likes of Man­jin­der Singh Bitta to ap­proach the Supreme Court of In­dia to ob­struct the path of re­lease.”

Dal Khalsa spokesper­son Kan­war Pal Singh said that the Tenth Guru sac­ri­ficed his sons for the sake of the Panth but to­day’s Sikh lead­ers were sac­ri­fic­ing Pan­thic in­ter­ests for the sake of their sons.

Re­fer­ring to Amit Shah call­ing names to the stu­dents of var­i­ous uni­ver­si­ties protest­ing the di­vi­sive CAA and NRC, he said the lan­guage of Home Min­is­ter threat­en­ing the pro­test­ers was that of ‘goon­da’. It does­n’t be­hove well for the of­fice of the Home Min­is­ter of a coun­try to talk in such de­mean­ing lan­guage.

Kan­war Pal Singh also slammed the state­ment of In­dian Army Chief Bipin Rawat in which he said stu­dents were be­ing led to vi­o­lence while protest­ing against the new law. He said the state­ment was clearly po­lit­i­cal in na­ture. “Al­low­ing the In­dian army chief to med­dle in civil and po­lit­i­cal af­fairs, was in a bad taste,” he added.