Dit Dit Dit Dah Dah Dah Dit Dit Dit …—… The World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Canada sends an emer­gency ur­gent ac­tion SOS mes­sage to the Cana­dian Im­mi­gra­tion Min­is­ter Marco Men­di­cino urg­ing him to in­ter­vene and save the lives of 250 plus Afghan Sikhs and Hin­dus in Kabul, Kan­da­har and Ghazni in Afghanistan. WSN re­ports.

Push­ing their ef­forts to the hilt, leav­ing no stone un­turned and al­low­ing no room for com­pla­cency on the part of the gov­ern­ment or the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the Im­mi­gra­tion de­part­ment, WSO has pro­vided a com­pre­hen­sive list of all Sikhs and Hin­dus re­main­ing in Afghanistan with their con­tact and pass­port de­tails with an ur­gent ac­tion re­quest to repa­tri­ate them from Afghanistan to Canada like they are do­ing for Canada-friendly Afghan in­ter­preters and staff.

Re­ports em­a­nat­ing from Afghanistan are scary. The Hindu has re­ported that the Tal­iban have des­e­crated and re­moved the Nis­han Sahib (Sikh re­li­gious flag) of Gur­d­wara Thala Sahib in Chamkani in Pak­tia province. Though not con­firmed as yet, re­port­edly, the care­taker of the Gur­d­wara has also re­port­edly been threat­ened by Tal­iban com­man­ders. This clearly spells dan­ger for the Afghan Sikhs and Hin­dus as the Tal­iban strengthen their hold. The only Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment of the Afghan As­sem­bly Narinder Pal Singh has also ex­pressed deep an­guish at the de­te­ri­o­rat­ing sit­u­a­tion. 

The WSO let­ter to Marco E. L. Men­di­cino, P.CM.P., Min­is­ter of Im­mi­gra­tion, Refugees and Cit­i­zen­ship states that the Sikh com­mu­nity would pri­vately spon­sor the evac­u­a­tion and set­tle­ment of these refugees with­out any bur­den on the Cana­dian ex­che­quer. 

“Sikhs from across Canada have writ­ten to you re­quest­ing your at­ten­tion to this mat­ter, as have ma­jor Sikh or­ga­ni­za­tions and gur­d­waras.  In July 2020, 25 Cana­dian MPs from the Con­ser­v­a­tive Party of Canada, NDP and Green Party also wrote to you re­quest­ing a spe­cial pro­gram for Afghan Sikh and Hindu refugees.”

The let­ter states that “Thou­sands of Sikhs from across Canada as well as Sikh or­ga­ni­za­tions and gur­d­waras have also called on the Gov­ern­ment of Canada to in­clude Afghan Sikhs and Hin­dus in the evac­u­a­tion of in­ter­preters and staff who as­sisted Cana­dian Forces.”

Like Canada, the USA, the UK and other NATO forces con­tinue to com­plete their with­drawal from Afghanistan, they are now en­gaged in evac­u­at­ing friends of the forces -in­ter­preters and staff who as­sisted the Cana­dian Armed Forces and the other forces.  Tejin­der Pal Singh Sidhu, the pres­i­dent of the WSO, fear­ing fur­ther wors­en­ing of the se­cu­rity sit­u­a­tion in the still war-torn coun­try, has re­quested that as a hu­man­i­tar­ian ges­ture, “Afghan Sikh and Hindu fam­i­lies also be evac­u­ated im­me­di­ately.”

Some 700 plus Sikhs had evac­u­ated them­selves to In­dia af­ter the at­tack on Gur­d­wara Guru Har Rai Sahib in Kabul last year, killing 24 Sikhs -men, women and a girl child. Sub­se­quently, too, Sikhs have been tar­geted with ab­duc­tions and bomb­ings. 

Ex­press­ing deep anx­i­ety at the sit­u­a­tion, the World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion let­ter ap­peals for as­sis­tance as the sit­u­a­tion turns des­per­ate and the re­main­der of the two com­mu­ni­ties are in a vul­ner­a­ble po­si­tion be­cause of their num­bers and ap­pear­ance. 

“The time to act is now. Any fur­ther de­lay in evac­u­at­ing this vul­ner­a­ble group will cost lives. It is a life and death sit­u­a­tion.” 

In the re­cent past, “Sikhs from across Canada have writ­ten to you re­quest­ing your at­ten­tion to this mat­ter, as have ma­jor Sikh or­ga­ni­za­tions and gur­d­waras.  In July 2020, 25 Cana­dian MPs from the Con­ser­v­a­tive Party of Canada, NDP and Green Party also wrote to you re­quest­ing a spe­cial pro­gram for Afghan Sikh and Hindu refugees.”

Canada has a his­tory of ac­com­mo­dat­ing peo­ple in dis­tress and dan­ger.  It has ac­com­mo­dated thou­sands of refugees from many coun­tries in the past decade, cour­tesy of the ef­forts of the Man­meet Singh Bhullar Foun­da­tion. It has also ben­e­fited some 60 fam­i­lies the Sikhs from Afghanistan, who, af­ter reach­ing In­dia had ap­plied for asy­lum af­ter the at­tack on Kan­da­har two years ago and were ac­com­mo­dated.  More of them, whose pa­per­work for asy­lum has been com­pleted are wait­ing for the Covid19 sit­u­a­tion to im­prove and then Canada will ac­com­mo­date them too. The con­cerned Min­is­ter has al­ready placed this on record. 

 As the SOS call from WSO says, “The time to act is now. Any fur­ther de­lay in evac­u­at­ing this vul­ner­a­ble group will cost lives. It is a life and death sit­u­a­tion.” The ever-grate­ful Sikh com­mu­nity has al­ways held Canada in high es­teem for its mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, lib­er­al­ism and ac­com­mo­da­tion of lan­guage, cul­ture and re­li­gious rights of the Sikhs. 

The Sikh com­mu­nity world­wide joins the WSO’s Save Our Souls call with the hope and prayer that this too Canada will rise to the oc­ca­sion.