Ob­serv­ing 40 years of an in­ci­dent which cat­a­pulted the Sikh cause for free­dom into the lime­light, rev­o­lu­tion­ary Sikh body, com­mit­ted to the sov­er­eign rights of the Sikh peo­ple -Dal Khalsa, at a func­tion in Ja­land­har ho­n­oured its founder Gajin­der Singh and his four com­pa­tri­ots who took the ex­treme step of hi­jack­ing on 29 Sep­tem­ber 1981 to se­cure the re­lease of Sikh na­tional hero Sant Jar­nail Singh Bhin­dran­wale and also to fo­cus world at­ten­tion on the plight of Sikhs. WSN re­ports.

At a well-at­tended Gur­mat Sam­agam in a lo­cal Gur­d­wara, in the pres­ence of stal­warts from the Sikh world, the quin­tet of five hi­jack­ers were ho­n­oured with gold medals ex­press­ing deep grat­i­tude for their long im­pris­on­ments and ex­ile. Of the five, Gajin­der Singh, Jas­bir Singh, Karan Singh are still in ex­ile while Sat­nam Singh and Tejin­der­pal Singh have re­turned to Pun­jab af­ter com­ple­tion of their life sen­tences in Pak­istan pris­ons for 14 years.

Rev­o­lu­tion­ary poet and sheet an­chor of Dal Khalsa -Gajin­der Singh, con­tin­ues to be in ex­ile as a state­less per­son, as he has cho­sen to pro­vide the ide­o­log­i­cal path to Sikhs and par­tic­u­larly to those who are com­mit­ted to Sikh na­tion­al­ism lead­ing to the cre­ation of a sov­er­eign Sikh state.  Jas­bir Singh and Karan Singh too are in ex­ile, whereas Sat­nam Singh Paonta Sahib and Tejin­der Pal Singh have re­turned to their home­land Pun­jab to con­tinue to con­tribute their bit in the strug­gle for free­dom. It is this spirit that we ob­serve to­day and It is this legacy that we carry for­ward, read the Dal Khalsa state­ment. 

“With this one act of Dal Khalsa, the strug­gle for Khal­is­tan drew in­ter­na­tional at­ten­tion. The world came to know about the Sikh goal for in­de­pen­dence.”

Kan­war Pal Singh, Spokesper­son, Dal Khalsa

Dal Khalsa lead­er­ship had to take the ex­treme step to hi­jack the plane, be­cause, in the late ’70s of the last cen­tury, the Sikhs of Pun­jab faced cul­tural and po­lit­i­cal at­tacks as their lives were hi­jacked by the In­dian state ma­chin­ery, said party spokesper­son Kan­war Pal Singh.

Pushed to the wall, with no pos­si­bil­ity of jus­tice and fair play in sight, Dal Khalsa men led by Gajin­der Singh, recog­nis­ing the need of the hour, de­cided to hi­jack an aero­plane on 29 Sep­tem­ber 1981 to protest against the ar­rest of Sant Bhin­dran­wale in a pseudo-mur­der case, killings of thir­teen protest­ing Sikhs at Chowk Mehta, Am­rit­sar and to fo­cus world at­ten­tion on In­dian atroc­i­ties on Sikhs in the Pun­jab. 

Sig­nif­i­cantly, the hi­jack­ing was a peace­ful ac­tion, with the pas­sen­gers, af­ter the hi­jack­ing, pay­ing whole­some trib­utes to the nicety of the Sikh hi­jack­ers.

He said that “with this one act of Dal Khalsa, the strug­gle for Khal­is­tan drew in­ter­na­tional at­ten­tion. The world came to know about the Sikh goal for in­de­pen­dence.”

Even Gajin­der Singh was forth­right in his thoughts ex­pressed strongly in his po­ems, when he said, “The strug­gle for a home for the Sikhs will stay alive till it reaches its log­i­cal con­clu­sion.”

“We are car­ry­ing the same strug­gle for­ward in a de­mo­c­ra­tic man­ner and any com­pro­mise with the goal amounts to be­lit­tling the sac­ri­fices of the mar­tyrs. De­mands for fed­er­al­ism, au­ton­omy or spe­cial pow­ers within the am­bit of the In­dian con­sti­tu­tion can’t be a sub­sti­tute for the goal of com­plete in­de­pen­dence from the In­dian yoke.”  

“The strug­gle for a home for the Sikhs will stay alive till it reaches its log­i­cal con­clu­sion.”

Gajin­der Singh, Founder leader Dal Khalsa, presently in ex­ile

Party head Harpal Singh Cheema said the Dal Khalsa, to­day re­calls the day with pride that their lead­er­ship, fully mind­ful of the con­se­quences, took the plunge, in a fully peace­ful man­ner with­out harm­ing any pas­sen­ger what­so­ever. 

Ishar Singh -son of Sant Bhin­dran­wale, for­mer mil­i­tant leader Nar­ien Singh, SGPC mem­ber Sukhdev Singh Bhaur and Kar­nail Singh Pan­joli, Beant Singh brother of Gen­eral Shabeg Singh of June 1984 fame, be­stowed the ho­n­our on the stal­warts and their rel­a­tives.