|
How much does it take the Sikhs to
secure justice in a blatant case?
WSN News
 CALIFORNIA:
Sardar Jaswant Singh Khalra was kidnapped by the Punjab
police goondas in 1995. The WSN presents below a short summary of
what various Sikh organisations connected with the Diaspora did in
that year itself. Remember that we are not even touching the efforts
made by Sikhs in India, the SGPC
or the Akali Dal leaders, and we are not talking of the efforts made
since 1995, something the discerning readers can pretty much guess.
Just the 1995 recall will be enough for you to judge how much does
take the Sikhs to secure justice in a case so blatant.
In a memorandum
to UK
Prime Minister John Major, IHRO European President, Barrister Harjit
Singh said: "The worrying aspect of the Khalra saga is that it is
not an isolated incident. In Punjab, such cases are legion. In 1992
another human rights activist and lawyer, Kulwant Singh Saini, along
with his young spouse and 15 month-old son, was killed by the police
when Saini turned up at the police station to represent a client. It
was the family's misfortune to accompany him to the police station.
Clearly, the police wanted no witnesses. Other three Sikh lawyers
working in the human rights field have also been killed since. The
Indian Constitution and the Indian Penal and Criminal Procedure
Codes do provide safeguards against unacknowledged detentions but
these are of little use in practice. In such cases and particularly
in instances of 'disappearances,' cases brought before the courts
move extremely slowly. Another exasperating factor is that the then
Chief Minister of Punjab
(Beant Singh) and the then DGP KPS Gill, (were) working hand in
glove. Indeed, KPS Gill (was) the political overlord in the state
and is responsible for thousands of extrajudicial killings."
Responding to
the memorandum, John Major asked the Foreign Office to reply. FL
Gristock, South Asia Department, in its letter of December 1995,
informed the IHRO European office: "Our High Commission in New Delhi is
monitoring the case of Mr Khalra and has on several occasions, most
recently on 12 December, raised this case with the Indian
Government."
IHRO North
America took up the matter with then Canadian Prime Minister Jean
Chretien. Mr Chretien took up the case with Mr Narasimha Rao while
in New
Delhi.
The then Canadian Foreign Minister Andre Ouellette, in a letter to
the IHRO coordination office, Toronto, said they had raised the
matter with Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee at the United
Nations, New York, and at the meeting of the Heads of Commonwealth
Countries at Auckland, New Zealand.
Colleen Beaumier,
MP, also lobbied in the case. Herb Dhaliwal and Gurbax Singh Malhi,
both Sikh MPs, also raised their voice. Twenty-four Sikh
organisations of the United States of
America and Canada, in an advertisement published in New York Times
on the opinion page accused India of state terrorism.
US Members of
Congress John Doolittle and Dan Burton, in their resolution (No 233
of September 28, 1995) in House of Representatives, condemned the
disappearance, saying: "The House joins World Sikh Organisation in
condemning the abduction of Mr Khalra and urging his immediate
release."
10 October, 2007
|
Read Also