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Sikhs observe bandh against
continuing murder spree of
Dera Sauda
Zafarzang Singh
 BHATINDA/CHANDIGARH:
Life
grounded to a halt across Punjab on Wednesday as the Sant Samaj and
various other Sikh organizations observed a peaceful and highly
successful bandh, asking that the Sirsa dera head whose goons are on
a murder spree, be arrested. The bandh call was triggered by the
murder of Harmandir Singh at Mandi Dabwali in Haryana.
Prior to that,
Kamaljit Singh was killed in Sunam and just last month, Balkar Singh
was killed in Mumbai by the hired goons of the pseudo-chief Gurmit
Ram Rahim. As this edition of the WSN was going to the press, a
large section of the Sikhs in Punjab and Haryana have downed the
shutters and held peace marches seeking arrest of dera chief.
Schools and colleges in Bhatinda,
Ludhiana
and Mohali stayed shut and there was an uneasy calm on the streets.
While in
Jalandhar, traffic was badly disrupted, it remained largely
unaffected in Ludhiana and some other places. In view of the
prevailing situation in most parts of the state and particularly
after the incidents in Dirba and
Ludhiana,
security forces in both the states were beefed up and a near-curfew
type situation prevailed in the Bhatinda-Mandi Dabwali-Sirsa
districts. Reportedly, the police in Ludhiana has arrested and
released on bail three Sikh youth for alledgedly attacking a dera
follower Amrik Singh and his family. As many as 35 Sikh youth have
been implicated in this case at Kamla Nagar in
Ludhiana.
Baba Harnam Singh Dhumma, the chief of the Damdami Taksal and the
Sant Samaj has said that “if the governments of
Punjab, Haryana,
Maharashtra and the centre fail to arrest the dhongi baba, the Samaj
will meet on 30 July in Ludhiana to decide the next course.
It sounded as if
Satan was quoting the Bible, when the spokesperson of the Dera,
Aditya Insaan, said that “their fundamental rights were being
infringed” He complained that more than 25 of their deras had been
shut down and followers not allowed to say prayers.
23
July, 2008
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