On the eve of World Hu­man Rights Day, Dal Khalsa will hold a protest demon­stra­tion in Bhatinda in the wake of the re­cent US in­dict­ment im­pli­cat­ing In­dian agents in a plot to as­sas­si­nate Gur­pat­want Singh Pannu, a pro-Sikh free­dom ac­tivist of the Sikhs For Jus­tice group. Dal Khalsa as­serts that this case ex­em­pli­fies In­di­a’s long­stand­ing and covert strat­egy of tar­get­ing promi­nent Sikhs abroad, a claim con­sis­tently de­nied by the In­dian gov­ern­ment. WSN re­ports.

The US in­dict­ment, along with pre­vi­ous state­ments from Cana­dian Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau re­gard­ing the as­sas­si­na­tion of Cana­dian Sikh leader Hard­eep Singh Ni­j­jar, has in­ten­si­fied con­cerns within the Sikh di­as­pora about In­di­a’s transna­tional op­er­a­tions. Dal Khalsa crit­i­cized In­dian Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Modi for his si­lence on these is­sues, in­clud­ing re­cent events in Ma­nipur and the al­leged tar­get­ing of other Sikh in­di­vid­u­als.

Dal Khal­sa’s planned protest aims to draw at­ten­tion not only to these ex­tra­ju­di­cial in­ci­dents but also to broader is­sues of hu­man rights abuses and state-spon­sored vi­o­lence against Sikhs, Kash­miris, and Ma­nipuris in In­dia.

In­di­a’s re­sponse to­day is no dif­fer­ent from its ear­lier stand of be­ing in de­nial mode and tak­ing the moral up­per ground that “it is not our pol­icy”. Sikhs in Pun­jab and the world know that In­dia has been us­ing this strat­egy shame­lessly for decades and it is only now that they have been thor­oughly ex­posed.

Dal Khalsa had ear­lier ap­pre­ci­ated the stand of Cana­dian PM Justin Trudeau and has now ex­pressed deep sat­is­fac­tion at the ex­pose by the  US Jus­tice De­part­ment.

“Notwith­stand­ing our dis­agree­ment with the per­cep­tions and ap­proach of SFJ leader Pan­nun, we will not tol­er­ate In­di­a’s role to phys­i­cally harm any Sikh based on his or her ide­ol­ogy,” read the Dal Khalsa state­ment.

Dal Khalsa has stated, “As has been men­tioned in the 15-page well-doc­u­mented US in­dict­ment, there seems to be a hit list on which the In­dian gov­ern­ment is work­ing. This is true be­cause they first killed promi­nent Sikh mil­i­tant Paramjit Singh Pan­jwar in Pak­istan, then Hard­eep Singh Ni­j­jar in Canada, and now the US has un­earthed the plot to kill Pan­nun.”

“Notwith­stand­ing our dis­agree­ment with the per­cep­tions and ap­proach of SFJ leader Pan­nun, we will not tol­er­ate In­di­a’s role to phys­i­cally harm any Sikh based on his or her ide­ol­ogy.”

“While we keep our fin­gers crossed, the Sikh Di­as­pora lives through a live fear as to who is In­di­a’s next tar­get,” said Dal Khalsa leader Kan­war Pal Singh, while speak­ing to this cor­re­spon­dent.

“We sense the grave need for con­tin­ued vig­i­lance and re­sis­tance against an on­go­ing as­sault on the Sikh com­mu­ni­ty’s col­lec­tive pride and rights,” says party leader and gen­eral sec­re­tary Paramjit Singh Mand.

“We sense the grave need for con­tin­ued vig­i­lance and re­sis­tance against an on­go­ing as­sault on the Sikh com­mu­ni­ty’s col­lec­tive pride and rights.”

Paramjit Singh Mand, Gen­eral Sec­re­tary, Dal Khalsa

“Given a grow­ing con­cern amongst Sikhs world­wide over their safety and pro­tec­tion of their rights, we seek more sup­port and ex­po­sure against In­di­a’s ag­gres­sion and call upon in­ter­na­tional gov­ern­ments, par­tic­u­larly the Five Eye coun­tries, to mon­i­tor In­di­a’s ac­tiv­i­ties more closely,” he added.