Alarmed at the emerg­ing tense sit­u­a­tion, Dal Khalsa, SAD (Am­rit­sar)  and other Pan­thic bod­ies said In­di­a’s uni­lat­eral ac­tion to strip Kash­mir of its spe­cial sta­tus and Pak­istan’s nat­ural re­ac­tion against it has trig­gered the pos­si­bil­ity of war be­tween the nu­clear-ready neigh­bours. The fresh strains in Indo-Pak re­la­tions af­ter In­di­a’s ret­ro­grade step re­vok­ing Ar­ti­cle 370, is likely to cast a shadow on Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor and Gur­purab cel­e­bra­tions.

FROM DAY ONE, we were sus­pi­cious of In­di­a’s in­ten­tions. New Delhi had re­luc­tantly ac­cepted the Sikh de­mand for a pas­sage to the his­toric Kar­tarpur Gur­d­wara Sahib af­ter Pak­istan’s nod, said Dal Khalsa Spokesper­son Kan­war Pal Singh, at a press meet.

Ac­com­pa­nied by Gur­deep Singh Bhatinda and Jaskaran Singh Ka­han Singh Wala, he said the Gur­purab cel­e­bra­tions have be­gun, the Na­gar Kir­tan from Nankana Sahib is on its route and the sec­ond one from Delhi to Nankana Sahib is on the anvil. On such a sa­cred oc­ca­sion In­dia has taken this dras­tic step against the Kash­miri peo­ple by tram­pling their rights, seiz­ing the Kash­mir by de­tain­ing the lead­er­ship and vir­tu­ally im­pris­on­ing peo­ple in their homes.

It is not too far-fetched to sur­mise that In­dia per­haps wants to kill two birds with one stone. On the pre­text of the Kash­mir sit­u­a­tion, In­dia per­haps at heart de­sires to wrig­gle out of its com­mit­ment to build the Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor.

He said the In­dian gov­ern­ment has pushed the Sikh com­mu­nity into a state of un­cer­tainty.

The lead­ers an­nounced protest ral­lies on Au­gust 15 at as many as 15 dis­tricts of the state against gross abuse of hu­man rights and po­lit­i­cal sub­ju­ga­tion of the peo­ples. What Kash­mir is fac­ing to­day is rem­i­nis­cent of the days Pun­jab has lived by for decades, while the op­pres­sor is the same In­dian state head­quar­tered in New Delhi.

Re­fer­ring to the pic­ture of Na­tional Se­cu­rity Ad­vi­sor chief Ajit Doval pub­lished in the In­dian me­dia wherein he is shown hav­ing a meal with three Mus­lims in Shopian area, the Sikh lead­ers ridiculed the forced photo-op so eas­ily ac­cepted by the main­stream me­dia.  Who are the peo­ple in the photo, they asked? They could be cops, rene­gades, ran­dom Mus­lims from Delhi or worse -Kash­miris told to pose un­der duress.

The pic­ture in which Doval is seen wear­ing a bul­let­proof jacket and stand­ing be­fore closed shops it­self con­veys the real ground mes­sage which Modi Govt wants to hide from the world me­dia and hood­wink the world.