On 27 March 1983, Sant Jar­nail Singh Bhin­dran­wale, in a speech at Gur­d­wara Manji Sahib, within the precincts of Dar­bar Sahib de­clared, “The day the po­lice will at­tack this place (Dar­bar Sahib), it will be­come an ex­am­ple for the world. On that day, Khal­is­tan will def­i­nitely be a re­al­ity”. Dal Khalsa fol­lows up on the speech and de­clares 6 June as Khal­is­tan Strug­gle Day with a close down of the city of Am­rit­sar on that day. Ac­tivists of Dal Khalsa, Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal (Am­rit­sar) and other groups marched through the lanes of Am­rit­sar on 5 June re­call­ing and reaf­firm­ing their com­mit­ment.

PAY­ING rich trib­utes to Sikh mar­tyrs of June 1984 and vow­ing to carry for­ward their mis­sion, a Geno­cide Re­mem­brance March was or­gan­ised by Dal Khalsa and Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal in the streets of the holy city.

Ac­tivists and lead­ers, men, women and chil­dren car­ry­ing pho­tographs, bill­boards, plac­ards and flags.

The par­tic­i­pants marched from Gur­d­wara Ran­jeet Av­enue and pass­ing through the ma­jor lanes of the city, cul­mi­nated the march in the por­tals of Akal Takht Sahib.

Many young pro­test­ers were heard rais­ing pro-free­dom slo­gans.

Dal Khalsa spokesper­son Kan­warpal Singh, re­call­ing the events of June 1984 said, “the right-wing BJP re­peat­edly sought an In­dian army at­tack on Dar­bar Sahib, the Con­gress party planned and ex­e­cuted the at­tack and in the af­ter­math, the whole of In­dia rev­elled on it.”

Ad­dress­ing the protest march to com­mem­o­rate 35 years of the army op­er­a­tion, or­ga­ni­za­tion head Harpal Singh Cheema said: “The sen­ti­ments of sov­er­eignty that were strength­ened by the army at­tack have not been buried with the pas­sage of time and change in the po­lit­i­cal sce­nario. We will keep the flag fly­ing.”

“The as­pi­ra­tions of the Di­as­pora for Khal­is­tan are very strong,” said Akali Dal Am­rit­sar leader Eman Singh Mann, whose party ex­tended sup­port to the march. He said the ba­sic is­sue is the ful­fil­ment of the po­lit­i­cal ob­jec­tive for which the strug­gle was launched.

SFS stu­dents led by Kanu Priya from Pan­jab Uni­ver­sity, Chandi­garh, also par­tic­i­pated in the march and ex­pressed sol­i­dar­ity with the Sikhs.

On June 6, the city of Am­rit­sar re­mained shut at the call of Dal Khalsa.