Un­able to tol­er­ate in­ter­na­tional op­pro­brium at UN or any other global fora, In­dian au­thor­i­ties im­pounded the pass­port of Dal Khalsa Pres­i­dent Harpal Singh Cheema when he ar­rived at New Delhi air­port af­ter at­tend­ing a UN meet­ing in Bangkok on steps to be taken to fos­ter in­clu­sive so­ci­eties in South Asia.

Upon ar­rival at the New Delhi air­port from Thai­land’s cap­i­tal Bangkok to­day af­ter­noon, af­ter at­tend­ing a two-day UN meet there, the pres­i­dent of the Dal Khalsa Harpal Singh Cheema was de­tained for two hours and then al­lowed to go, but his pass­port was im­pounded, with­out giv­ing him any rea­son.

The two-day meet saw par­tic­i­pants from many South Asian coun­tries in­clud­ing Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, In­dia and Pak­istan de­lib­er­at­ing upon ef­forts that need to be done by re­li­gious lead­ers, ac­tors, schol­ars and faith or­gan­i­sa­tions to fos­ter in­clu­sive so­ci­eties in these coun­tries. Or­gan­ised by the UN of­fice on Geno­cide Pre­ven­tion and the Re­spon­si­bil­ity to Pro­tect it dis­cussed var­i­ous good prac­tices in these coun­tries which need to be ac­knowl­edged and re­it­er­ated and bad prac­tices that need to be chal­lenged and done away with.

“Hav­ing hit a wall in In­dia, let us ex­plore in­ter­na­tional fo­rums in an ap­pro­pri­ate man­ner, with hope that Sikhs will get some jus­tice from some quar­ter.”

Harpal Singh Cheema, ex­clu­sively to WSN

Ad­vo­cate Harpal Singh Cheema -pres­i­dent of Dal Khalsa and a hu­man rights ac­tivist in his own right pre­sented his views on the cur­rently pre­vail­ing sit­u­a­tion in In­dia with re­spect to Sikh, Mus­lims, Chris­tians and Dal­its and the grow­ing in­ci­dents of hate speech and in­sti­tu­tional in­jus­tices against this sec­tion of so­ci­ety.

Ques­tion­ing the role of the United Na­tions in tak­ing up the case of Sikhs and other mi­nori­ties in In­dia, Ad­vo­cate Cheema said that, “Though the UN and the world com­mu­nity talk of peace, but there is in­ter­ven­tion only af­ter the hap­pen­ing of crimes. It is heart­en­ing to note that the pre­sent ini­tia­tive is part of a Global Plan to pre­vent geno­cide.”

He also pleaded for ac­tive UN in­ter­ven­tion in In­dia to set up a Com­mis­sion to re­view atroc­ity crimes against Sikhs and oth­ers and to prop­a­gate UN mech­a­nisms to en­sure more com­pli­ance by In­dia and other coun­tries.  He sug­gested many steps to be taken by re­li­gious lead­ers, in­clud­ing “zero tol­er­ance of any hate speech by leader of any com­mu­nity.”

In his sub­mis­sion dur­ing dis­cus­sions at the meet, Harpal Singh said, “Sikhs are the fifth largest re­li­gious iden­tity in the world, with an eas­ily vis­i­ble pop­u­la­tion wear­ing the tur­ban, the Sikhs in their 548-year his­tory are com­mit­ted to Sar­bat da bhala -wel­fare of hu­mankind. Dur­ing this pe­riod, there has never been a case when the Sikhs have spread hate against any­one in an or­gan­ised man­ner.”

He fur­ther added that, “This pe­riod has seen holo­causts where rulers of the day -the Mughals, the Hindu chief­tains, British In­dia and in re­cent times, In­dia has in­flicted atroc­ity crimes against Sikhs. Almighty God, the re­sis­tance ca­pa­bil­i­ties of the Sikhs and their re­silience to bounce back to life and con­tinue the jour­ney of life has pre­vented their an­ni­hi­la­tion.”

The UN meet also dis­cussed method­olo­gies to pre­vent in­cite­ment to vi­o­lence and atroc­ity crimes and Dal Khalsa has no hes­i­ta­tion in stat­ing that “the In­dian state is solely re­spon­si­ble for build­ing an at­mos­phere of hate against the Sikh peo­ple and our fun­da­men­tal rights are be­ing tram­pled with im­punity.”

“We will not take this ly­ing down. Un­doubt­edly, they will slow us down through bu­reau­cratic rig­ma­role of re-ap­pli­ca­tion and in­or­di­nate de­lays, but we will fight back. We will go to in­ter­na­tional fo­rums and em­bar­rass In­dia for such acts of gross in­jus­tice.”

Kan­warpal Singh, Spokesper­son, Dal Khalsa

As if he had sensed the at­ti­tude of the In­dian state, he had in­vited the UN or­gan­is­ers to hold such in­ter­na­tional con­fer­ences of the United Na­tions in the Pun­jab, “in or­der to in­stil a sense of po­lit­i­cal con­flict res­o­lu­tion as In­dia con­tin­ues to view every sit­u­a­tion as a law and or­der prob­lem only.”

Speak­ing to the me­dia, spokesper­son of the party, Kan­warpal Singh said, “We will not take this ly­ing down. Un­doubt­edly, they will slow us down through bu­reau­cratic rig­ma­role of re-ap­pli­ca­tion and in­or­di­nate de­lays, but we will fight back.” We will go to in­ter­na­tional fo­rums and em­bar­rass In­dia for such acts of gross in­jus­tice.

Speak­ing ex­clu­sively to World Sikh News prior to go­ing to at­tend the meet, Harpal Singh Cheema said, “Hav­ing hit a wall in In­dia, let us ex­plore in­ter­na­tional fo­rums in an ap­pro­pri­ate man­ner, with hope that Sikhs will get some jus­tice from some quar­ter.”

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Lit­tle did he know that In­dia wants every­thing in­ter­na­tional, ex­cept in­ter­na­tional laws, UN con­ven­tions and covenants and their im­ple­men­ta­tion in In­dia.