Com­mem­o­rat­ing Bandi Chhor Di­vas, the day mark­ing the lib­er­a­tion of 52 kings by Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib, the ‘Sikh Youth of Pun­jab’ vol­un­teers and ac­tivists gath­ered at Sachk­hand Dar­bar Sahib to of­fer prayers for the well-be­ing and re­lease of Sikh de­tainees -af­fec­tion­ately called “Bandi Singhs.” This solemn vigil saw the ac­tivists hold­ing a peace­ful demon­stra­tion, dis­play­ing plac­ards with im­ages of Sikh de­tainees like Jaggi Jo­hal, Sandeep Singh Sunny, and Am­rit­pal Singh, along with oth­ers who have com­pleted their sen­tences. WSN re­ports.

SIKH YOUTH OF PUN­JAB -a Dal Khalsa af­fil­i­ate, reaf­firmed their com­mit­ment to a de­mo­c­ra­tic strug­gle against the con­tin­ued de­ten­tion of Sikh po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers, em­pha­siz­ing that post-sen­tence re­lease is not a plea for mercy but a fun­da­men­tal hu­man right. Gur­nam Singh Moonak, the or­ga­ni­za­tion’s leader, high­lighted the po­lit­i­cal promi­nence of the Sikh po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers’ is­sue, which has seen promises for re­lease by the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia and re­spec­tive state gov­ern­ments un­ful­filled, lead­ing to a be­trayal felt deeply within the Sikh com­mu­nity.

Lead­ers of the youth or­ga­ni­za­tion crit­i­cized the cen­tral gov­ern­ment and its gov­er­nors for reneg­ing on com­mit­ments to re­lease these pris­on­ers, urg­ing the Shi­ro­mani Gur­d­wara Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee to is­sue an ul­ti­ma­tum to the Modi gov­ern­ment and pre­pare for a con­certed strug­gle, as they be­lieve that jus­tice will not be served with­out a fight.

Adding to the griev­ance, the or­ga­ni­za­tion re­ported that ap­prox­i­mately ten Sikh youths were re­cently sent to Di­bru­garh un­der the Na­tional Se­cu­rity Act with­out sub­stan­tial le­gal jus­ti­fi­ca­tion.

The vice pres­i­dent and gen­eral sec­re­tary of the Sikh Youth of Pun­jab, Maan Singh and Sat­bir Singh ac­cused the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship, specif­i­cally nam­ing Modi, Shah, and Ke­jri­wal, of il­le­gally ob­struct­ing the re­lease of Sikh pris­on­ers and thus in­fring­ing upon their ba­sic hu­man rights.

This height­ened plea from the Sikh Youth of Pun­jab for the re­lease of pris­on­ers aligns with the spirit of lib­erty ex­em­pli­fied by Guru Har­gob­ind Sahib’s his­toric act of eman­ci­pa­tion.