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Murder on the
Mall
Sachkanwal Singh
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Sirsa goons kill Sikh, triggering rage among Sikh quom. Protests
across India but media distorts picture.
Complete train blockade
in Punjab on June 25.
Will this baba be ever controlled by
India? |
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MUMBAI:
TRIGGER-HAPPY security guards of self-styled, rape & murder-accused baba of Sirsa dera, opened point-blank fire into a crowd of Sikhs
protesting against him in a Mumbai mall on June 20 evening, killing
a Sikh Balkar Singh, and injuring others, before fleeing from the
scene in a cavalcade. Now, it emerges that the shots at the mall in
north-eastern part of Mumbai in Mulund area were fired by private
security guards of Gurmeet Ram Rahim, the dera baba, who had earlier
dished out gross insults to the Sikh community by imitating the
tenth Sikh Master, Guru Gobind Singh, and the Amrit Sanchar
ceremony.
Gurmeet Ram
Rahim, named as a prime accused by
India’s top
federal investigative agency CBI in rape and murder cases, has
strangely been provided Z-plus security by the government despite
strong protests from the Sikh community. On top of it, he employs
private security guards in complete defiance of directives from the
police.
 Mumbai exploded
within hours of the murder, Sikh groups blocked LBS Marg, one of
Mumbai’s most important arterial roads, and demanded dera
fraudster’s and the killer’s immediate arrest.
Next day, a few
angry Sikh groups in a rage tried to stop local trains in Mumbai,
triggering an all out anger by hyper-active TV news channels with
little knowledge of the background and perspective of the issue.
Many channels tried to paint it as a clash between two groups of
Sikhs.
Police seems to
have arrested some 11 people so far for the murder at the mall but
neither the actual killers were arrested, nor was the baba even
questioned once by the police. So much so that senior police
officials and bureaucrats in Haryana expressed helplessness at the
fact that the baba was using private guards despite Z-plus security,
the highest
India can offer
to any individual.
Protests
distorted
Traditional Sikh
protests with swords and kesri turbans were grossly misconstrued and
distorted by media channels and much was made of the show of swords
by the Sikh crowds. Indian media conveniently overlooked the fact
that not one person was attacked or injured, not one incident of
violence was reported, after the highly provocative killing by Dera
sadh’s men. All protests were aimed at forcing the government to
arrest the killer, rapist baba.
Even as
authorities tried to complicate the issue by arresting nearly 30
Sikhs in Mumbai for protesting, protests erupted in baba’s hometown
Sirsa, and all across Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Jammu, Indore, Kanpur,
Calcutta, Jamshedpur, Jaipur and across Karnataka. In Mumbai and at
many other places, police brutality against Sikhs was seen on many
TV channels but Indian media had little to say about all this.
Political
activity
Punjab’s ruling
Akali Dal made all the right noises, CM Parkash Singh Badal got on
the line with Maharashtra counterpart and on Tuesday, Sukhbir Singh
Badal landed in Mumbai and into limelight. By then, the Khalsa
Action Committee, which has remained in the forefront of the fight
against Sirsa dera from the beginning, had given a call for all-day
blockade of all trains across Punjab on June 25. Simranjit Singh
Mann gave a call for two hour blockade the same day.
On Wednesday, as
this WSN edition was going to the press, trains services had come to
a stand still as hordes of Sikh youth descended on railway tracks at
Rajpura (Patiala), Verka, Beas (both Amritsar) and Madhopur
(bordering Jammu). Crowds were gathering at many other railway
stations. Till late afternoon Wednesday (India
time), no train had moved between Punjab and Delhi either way, and
there seemed little chance that any would do so later.
Even though Bhai
Harnam Singh Dhumma and Bhai Daljit Singh Bittu were leading the
Rail Roko protests, a large number of activists of even the ruling
Akali Dal were seen participating in the blockade with gusto. For
the record, the Badal-led party did not join the protest.
Fraudster killer
back in Sirsa
Hours after
murdering a man on the mall, Sauda dera sadh skimpered away to
Mysore on Saturday evening and stayed overnight but such was the
groundswell of protests that the Karnataka government wanted to get
rid of the troublesome man immediately. As protests gathered steam,
he reached
Bangalore from
Mysore by a chartered helicopter and was put up at a secret place.
By Monday morning, he reached Delhi by air. Such was the fear of
angry Sikhs looking for him that even with his Z-plus security, army
of private guards and backing of central and state governments, baba
was not ready to travel to Sirsa. Instead, he chartered a
helicopter, landing right inside his dera. It was the first time
that Dera head had come to Sirsa by a chopper.
The Dera chief
has set up a camp on the outskirts of
Mysore where a
building of the dera is being constructed and 2.5 acres of land have
been purchased near Siddalingapura for the purpose.
As for any
reaction from the dera, its chief spokesman Aditya Insaan, known for
often making fantastically ridiculous statements, beat all records.
The killing at the mall, he said, was “an inadvertent hyper
reaction.”
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The role that
Badal Govt played in protests
At a time when the Sikh community demonstrated unity and a sense
of purpose and the June 25 protest blockade of the trains was
handled with considerable degree of political elan -- no ugly
scenes, langars for the stranded passengers, no violence and
completely disciplined crowds who called off the blockade at the
appointed hour -- the ruling Akali Dal and the Punjab Govt are
the only ones to strike a note of torpedo.
Instead of
thanking the Sikh sangats for ensuring that the protest remained
peaceful and the point was well made, the government headed by
Akali Dal patron Parkash Singh Badal issued a statement negating
the entire force of the protest and instead claiming that it
virtually had little or no impact.
And the credit
for no untoward incident taking place was given to the
government. "Government agencies had made elaborate arrangements
to maintain peace and communal harmony in the state," the
official press release said.
Even damned lies
were used as statistics by the CM's Media Advisor who took pains
to stress that he is also the "Principal Spokesperson" of the
state government: "The Indian Railways plies more than 225 daily
routes in the state. Reports reaching Chandigarh said that of
these, eleven had been either partially affected or
rescheduled." |
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Many pay homage
to Shaheed
Sikh
participants at the funeral and cremation of Bhai Balkar Singh, the
shaheed of Mumbai shooting, were not allowed to carry swords by the
Maharashtra police. More than 10,000 Sikhs joined the funeral
procession in suburban Mulund which faced protests on Friday and
Saturday.
Amid all this
mayhem, the Shiv Sena, a sort of terror outfit which talks of and
indulges in violence at the drop of a hat, asked the Sikhs not to
protest in Mumbai. This was rather strange because the Shiv Sena’s
only weapon of politics has been violence and the Sikh groups
refrained from violence throughout. In fact, not a single man was
injured as a result of the Sikh protests.
25
June, 2008
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