Pritpal Singh painfully shares personal memories of the Sikh leadership who were all killed in the recent suicide bomb attack in Jalalabad. This is his tribute to the giant would-be Member Parliament of the Afghan Parliament -Awtar Singh Khalsa. His rolled-up Afghan turban is an unmissable and unforgettable sight.

In Kabul, I had the opportunity to interact with Awtar Singh Khalsa, who was known as Master-ji within our community. After the fall of Dr Najib’s administration, he was the head teacher at a school run within the Karte Parwan Gurdwara compound in Kabul because our children stopped attending the state-run schools as soon as the civil war reached the capital.

He told me that those who had stayed back in Afghanistan felt abandoned by the those who had left for the west especially the Afghan Sikhs and Hindus living in the US, UK and Germany. He therefore saw it as his personal dedication to stay back and attend to the remaining families and Sikh institutions.

His candidacy for Afghanistan’s elections drew widespread attention across the country and in the Sikh Diaspora. It was celebrated as a sign of the minority group’s resilience and dedication to Afghanistan despite the most difficult times.

Sadly, the enemy could not tolerate Khalsa’s vision of an inclusive, democratic and progressive Afghanistan, probably that is why they killed him.

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