In the mem­ory of in­no­cent Sikh vic­tims of ‘pol­i­tics of geno­cide’,  to co­in­cide with the No­vem­ber 1984 geno­cide, a sem­i­nar was or­ga­nized by Dal Khalsa on the sub­ject of  ‘The 40-years saga of ex­tra­ju­di­cial killings and the chang­ing facets of Sikh re­sis­tance’ in which the speak­ers ex­pressed deep con­cern over the alarm­ing sit­u­a­tion arisen in the wake of ex­tra­ju­di­cial killings of Sikh sep­a­ratists world over. WSN re­ports.

At the con­clu­sion of the sem­i­nar, a prayer was held at the his­tor­i­cal Gur­d­wara Sahib, to pay homage to thou­sands of in­no­cent Sikh men, women and chil­dren who were butchered by fren­zied mobs un­der the full pa­tron­age of the state.

De­scrib­ing Canada’s ac­cu­sa­tion of Amit Shah’s in­volve­ment in the ex­tra­ju­di­cial killings of Sikhs as some­thing very se­ri­ous, the Dal Khalsa has re­quested the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity, es­pe­cially the Five Eyes al­liance to in­ves­ti­gate the ac­cu­sa­tion lev­elled by Canada and seek a re­sponse from the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia. Even the Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Modi owes the truth­ful an­swer to the Sikhs of Pun­jab, said Dal Khalsa pres­i­dent Harpal Singh Cheema.

The lead­ers of the or­ga­ni­za­tion clearly be­lieved that the only so­lu­tion to pre­vent the re-oc­cur­rence of mas­sacres like No­vem­ber 1984 is the in­de­pen­dence of Pun­jab from In­dian hege­mony. The or­ga­ni­za­tion had also put up big ban­ners in­side the Gur­d­wara com­plex to con­vey its mes­sage in this re­gard. A ban­ner with a pic­ture of In­di­a’s Home Min­is­ter Amit Shah and Na­tional Se­cu­rity Ad­vi­sor Ajit Doval was put up on which it was writ­ten that they are the brains be­hind In­di­a’s pol­icy of transna­tional re­pres­sion. Will the UN, UK and US hold them ac­count­able?

The or­ga­niz­ers of the sem­i­nar said that due to the tire­less ef­forts of the Sikh Di­as­pora, Nov 1984 Sikh mas­sacre has been duly rec­og­nized as geno­cide by the As­sem­blies of Cal­i­for­nia and Con­necti­cut in Amer­ica and On­tario Province in Canada. Thank­ing these states, Dal Khalsa ap­pealed to the fed­eral gov­ern­ments of West­ern and Eu­ro­pean coun­tries to pass sim­i­lar res­o­lu­tions in their re­spec­tive par­lia­ments rec­og­niz­ing Sikh killings as geno­cide.

On Canada list­ing In­dia in its ad­ver­sary list af­ter China, Iran, North Ko­rea, the Dal Khalsa lead­ers squarely blamed In­di­a’s for­eign min­is­ter for such mess, who not only re­jected but also down­played Justin Trudeau’s re­peated ap­peals to In­dian lead­er­ship to co­op­er­ate in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion of Hard­eep Singh Ni­j­jar mur­der case.

Dal Khalsa leader Kan­warpal Singh hits out at the suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments formed in New Delhi. “First, they called us ter­ror­ist. Now they added a new name “Gang­ster” with us. First, they put a Pak­istani tag on us. Now they had placed a Cana­dian tag on us. And all this was be­ing done to ma­lign our im­age world-over to por­tray Sikh strug­gle for in­de­pen­dence with com­mu­nal & vi­o­lent brush”.

Party Pres­i­dent Harpal Singh Cheema em­pha­sized on the need to chal­lenge and counter the nar­ra­tive cre­ated by the state to de­fame Sikh cause.

Work­ing Pres­i­dent Paramjit Singh Mand said that our Quam has an agenda, and we have our right­ful as­pi­ra­tions and de­sires. He said that there should be a po­lit­i­cal so­lu­tion to the Pun­jab prob­lem, and this should be done un­der the aegis of the UN through the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion law.

Hu­man rights de­fender Pro­fes­sor Jag­mo­han Singh, Bibi Am­rit Kaur daugh­ter of Sha­heed Beant Singh, SGPC mem­ber Kar­nail Singh Pan­joli, Ravin­der­pal Singh Khalsa,  and dis­trict court lawyers par­tic­i­pated in the event. A large num­ber of youths as­so­ci­ated with USSF led by Gurlaal Singh and mem­bers of stu­dent or­ga­ni­za­tion SATH led by Ju­jhar Singh par­tic­i­pated in the sem­i­nar.