In a sig­nif­i­cant de­vel­op­ment aimed at high­light­ing hu­man rights abuses in In­dia, the Dal Khalsa has called for the abo­li­tion of the death penalty and the re­lease of Sikh po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers. On the eve of the 75th World Hu­man Rights Day, the Dal Khalsa is plan­ning a rally and march in Bhatinda to raise aware­ness about these press­ing is­sues. WSN re­ports.

Dal Khal­sa’s move comes amidst es­ca­lat­ing con­cerns over the treat­ment of po­lit­i­cal dis­si­dents and mi­nor­ity com­mu­ni­ties in In­dia. The group has also sought in­ter­ven­tion from the United Na­tions to per­suade In­dia to join other na­tions that have al­ready abol­ished cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.

De­spite their peace­ful in­tent, WSN has learned that the Pun­jab po­lice and dis­trict ad­min­is­tra­tion have in­di­cated their re­luc­tance to al­low the com­mem­o­ra­tion of Hu­man Rights Day by the Dal Khalsa. This move only un­der­scores the need for ob­ser­va­tion of Hu­man Rights Day in the Pun­jab.

Paramjit Singh Mand, the young spokesper­son for the Dal Khalsa, em­pha­sized that the abo­li­tion of the death penalty could be a sig­nif­i­cant first step for In­dia to align with global hu­man rights stan­dards. He high­lighted that most coun­tries have moved away from cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. He men­tioned that “life and death are in God’s hands and hu­man fal­li­bil­ity by judges and ir­re­versibil­ity of wrong judge­ments has been proven to be ma­jor rea­sons for abo­li­tion world­wide. With a sense of pride, he as­serted that “in the 40-year rule of Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh in Pun­jab, no­body was awarded the death penalty.”

“This would be the best way to re­solve the case of re­lease of po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers sen­tenced to death,” em­pha­sized Mand.

Dal Khalsa has also reached out to in­ter­na­tional hu­man rights or­ga­ni­za­tions like Amnesty In­ter­na­tional and Hu­man Rights Watch, urg­ing them to make re­newed ef­forts to as­sess the hu­man rights sit­u­a­tion in re­gions like Pun­jab and Kash­mir. The clo­sure of Amnesty In­ter­na­tion­al’s In­dian Sec­tion, at­trib­uted to the in­dif­fer­ence of the In­dian es­tab­lish­ment, has raised con­cerns about the state of hu­man rights ad­vo­cacy in the coun­try.

Dal Khal­sa’s call for ac­tion is not just a plea for the abo­li­tion of an out­dated pun­ish­ment method but also a de­mand for a broader re­assess­ment of In­di­a’s ap­proach to hu­man rights, par­tic­u­larly con­cern­ing its mi­nor­ity com­mu­ni­ties. The group’s ini­tia­tive is seen as an at­tempt to bring in­ter­na­tional at­ten­tion to these on­go­ing is­sues.