En­dors­ing the Kash­miris’ un­equiv­o­cal right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion, the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal (Am­rit­sar) and Dal Khalsa said by scrap­ping ar­ti­cle 370 of the con­sti­tu­tion, the gov­ern­ment of In­dia has plunged the re­gion into fur­ther tur­moil. The move will fur­ther alien­ate the peo­ple of Kash­mir and peace will be a ca­su­alty. Both par­ties give a call to ob­serve 15 Au­gust as a black day through­out the state of Pun­jab.

Abro­ga­tion of Ar­ti­cle 35-A and Ar­ti­cle 370 of the In­dian Con­sti­tu­tion that granted spe­cial sta­tus to J&K is only a façade to con­tinue the tirade of in­jus­tice and state-ter­ror against the peo­ple of Kash­mir, said Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal (Am­rit­sar) chief Sim­ran­jit Singh Mann, while re­cently ad­dress­ing the me­dia in Am­rit­sar at the Dal Khalsa head of­fice.

Af­ter caging the en­tire lead­er­ship -from mod­er­ates to pro-free­dom lead­ers, seiz­ing the state with mil­i­tary might and dis­con­nect­ing Kash­mir from the rest of the world, New Delhi has taken this ret­ro­grade step. This is a clear mur­der of democ­racy, said Mann.

Trash­ing Home Min­is­ter Amit Shah’s claim that ar­ti­cle 370 was the biggest hur­dle to nor­malcy, Mann said con­trary to it, af­ter this move of the cen­tre, nor­malcy and peace in the re­gion will be­come a dis­tant dream. Kash­miris have been reel­ing un­der state re­pres­sion since many decades. They won’t let their sac­ri­fices go in vain. Com­ment­ing on bi­fur­cat­ing J&K into two UT’s, Mann said noth­ing on ground is go­ing to make a dif­fer­ence as ear­lier, New Delhi was rul­ing the state through a proxy and now it will only rule di­rectly.

Hit­ting out at the Badal-led Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal SAD for be­ing a party to the BJP de­ci­sion on the Kash­mir is­sue, he said by not op­pos­ing the move, the Badals had dumped the Anand­pur Sahib res­o­lu­tion that de­manded greater au­ton­omy to states.

Dal Khalsa head Harpal Singh Cheema said by re­vok­ing ar­ti­cle 370, the dis­puted na­ture of Kash­mir will not change. The strug­gle for free­dom does­n’t rest on such leg­is­la­tions. Nar­ien Singh of Akal Fed­er­a­tion was also pre­sent to ex­press sol­i­dar­ity with the cause of the Kash­miri peo­ple reel­ing un­der gov­ern­men­t’s re­pres­sion.

Cheema fur­ther said the pre­sent sit­u­a­tion in Kash­mir is rem­i­nis­cent of the Pun­jab sit­u­a­tion be­fore the army at­tack in Am­rit­sar in June 1984. With Gu­ru’s bless­ings, Sikhs fought against In­dian ag­gres­sion. It is ev­i­dent that the In­dian state has­n’t learned any lessons from its blun­ders and con­tin­ues with its pol­icy of tram­pling rights of peo­ples and po­lit­i­cal sub­ju­ga­tion.

Slam­ming the Modi dis­pen­sa­tion for turn­ing down Don­ald Trump’s peace me­di­a­tion of­fer, Dal Khalsa Spokesman Kan­war Pal Singh said we will be writ­ing to the US pres­i­dent for me­di­a­tion and in­ter­ven­tion as we are ge­o­graph­i­cal neigh­bours of Kash­mir, we share po­lit­i­cal bound­aries with Pak­istan and In­dia and we have ex­pe­ri­enced strain and stress over the last decades be­cause of a cli­mate of un­rest and de­nial of hu­man rights in the coun­try.

An­nounc­ing their protests pro­gram to mark In­di­a’s In­de­pen­dence Day, both the or­ga­ni­za­tions along with United Akali Dal, called upon the peo­ple of Pun­jab to ob­serve Au­gust 15 as black day. Mann said the rank and file of their party will stage protests at 15 dis­trict head­quar­ters on 15 Au­gust, car­ry­ing black flags and plac­ards to lodge their protest.

Slam­ming the flip-flop stand of the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment on the CBI clo­sure re­port in the Bar­garhi sac­ri­lege case, the lead­ers said Amarinder and his At­tor­ney Gen­eral were is­su­ing con­tra­dic­tory state­ments only to con­fuse and mis­lead the peo­ple and to hide their fail­ures. Iron­i­cally and sadly, Amarinder Singh is on the same page as Sukhbir Badal in this case, with a shared in­ter­est to pro­tect Dera Sirsa Head- who not only en­gi­neered sac­ri­lege acts but was also in­volved in the Maur Bomb blast.

The worst irony is that DGP Pra­bodh Ku­mar is writ­ing to CBI for rein­ves­ti­ga­tion mak­ing the find­ings of SIT led by Kha­tra as its ba­sis, com­pletely ig­nor­ing and down­play­ing the SIT he him­self is head­ing. They said jus­tice, not in Bar­garhi but also in Be­hbal Kalan fir­ing case eludes the peo­ple of Pun­jab as the top guilty copy SS Saini is still free to ob­struct the course of jus­tice.