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Sikh Refugees Demand Indian Citizenship


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http://news.oneindia.in/2010/02/24/sikhrefugees-demand-indiancitizenship.html

Amritsar, Feb 24 (ANI): Following the brutal beheading of two Sikhs by Taliban in Pakistan, refugee Sikhs, hailing from Peshawar in Pakistan living in Amritsar have demanded that they should be given citizenship so that they can live in India safely with their families.

Buzz up!

The refugee Sikhs expressed that their families and relatives in Peshawar and other tribal areas are under severe threat from Taliban and repatriation will cost them their lives as well.

About 60 Sikh families from Pakistan have taken refuge in Amritsar for the last couple of years.

Fearing intimidation from Taliban, the minority community has asked for adequate security from the Indian Government.

"Our mother, father, brothers and sisters are still living in Peshawar. It has been almost 15-16 years that we have been living here in India. We are happy here but our relatives back home are facing a tough time," said Sardar Singh, a refugee.

"It has been 15 years since we came to Punjab, but we haven't got citizenship as yet. Thus we can't even bring our relatives from Pakistan here," he added.

A few Sikh families hailing from Pakistan, particularly from the rebel-controlled areas of Peshawar, have settled in India's northern Punjab state and established their business here.

"People there tell our folks to leave and go to Punjab and people in Punjab say that you are foreigners. I ask which is my country. Am I a citizen of Pakistan, India or Afghanistan?" Sardar Singh questioned.

The Sikh refugees said that they approached the government several times and even sent request letters but many of them are still to get the Indian citizenship.

"We demand that the Indian government should give us citizenship so that we can bring our relatives here from Peshawar. We want them to live a safe and secure life, with their brothers here," said Satbir Singh, another refugee.

Thousands of Sikhs living in Pakistan's tribal belt adjoining Afghanistan have been trading in the region for generations.

In May 2009, the Sikhs joined an exodus of hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the Taliban stronghold of Swat Valley, when the army launched an offensive in as a peace pact with the militants broke down. By Ravinder Singh Robin (ANI)

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I think if there ever was a campaign that needed to be supported by all of the diaspora, it is this. What effective way can we put pressure on the Indian government to grant Af-Pak Sikhs Indian citizenship?

I hope no one suggests one of those ineffective Internet petitions which end up getting a few hundred names.

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I agree that whole sikh diaspora should support it,but

I also Think pressure should also be put OnUK,USA,Canadian government to grant them citizenship.

I don't have much hope from Indian government.The reason Minorities are always persecuted in muslim countries Like pakistan,Bangladesh.If refugee status is given to sikhs then Hindu's and Christian will also demand refugee status and the population of them is large.Neither India nor pakistan will want because It will create another partition like situation and many people in India would want that muslims should leave India

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There a loads of refugees here in the UK including Sikhs from Afghanistan. Plus quite a few of the indigenous seem to be going out of their mind with asylum seekers and immigrants right now. So it would be a hot potato. Canada would be better.

In any case we need more Sikhs in India especially Panjab, what with all the guys who are leaving in droves. Plus these guys are quite astute business wise as well as hardworking. They would be better than the average modern, lazy drug addicted 'farmer's sons' for the Panjab's economy.

First thing is their personal safety, India seems the nearest port of call for that. Maybe things need to be done discreetly so as to not rile up the other minorities? I have no idea of how to do this though?

Any remnant Khalistanis in Pakistan needs to get to Panja Sahib to protect the sangat and place if need be.

Look at this video.

I think the exaggerated claims of safety by the Sikh guy may be done under pressure?? We have two very different versions of events here, we have this guy going on like all is fine and dandy and we have other reports indicating the complete opposite with kidnappings, threats, ransoms, property destruction, jaziya and now murder.

What is going on?

Edited by dalsingh101
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In any case we need more Sikhs in India especially Panjab, what with all the guys who are leaving in droves. Plus these guys are quite astute business wise as well as hardworking. They would be better than the average modern, lazy drug addicted 'farmer's sons' for the Panjab's economy.

There are barely around 30,000 sikhs in pakistan while there are around 3 million Hindu's in pakistan .If sikhs are allowed to settle in Punjab then thousands of Hindu's will also come along with them.I am not against Hindu's settling in Punjab but don't think that it will

be good from the point of view of communal ratio for sikhs in Punjab

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while there are around 3 million Hindu's in pakistan

What the raas!

Seriously!

I saw this Pakistani film recently. It was about some 'low-caste' Hindu from Pak that strayed over the border with his son and was imprisoned for years. I'd gathered there were some Hindus there from that but I didn't know there were that many!

They say you learn a new thing every day......

Edited by dalsingh101
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I don't have much hope from Indian government.The reason Minorities are always persecuted in muslim countries Like pakistan,Bangladesh.If refugee status is given to sikhs then Hindu's and Christian will also demand refugee status and the population of them is large.Neither India nor pakistan will want because It will create another partition like situation and many people in India would want that muslims should leave India

Best thing would be a full swap. Send all Muslims in India to Af/Pak/Bangla and bring non-Muslims from those places to India. Basically fulfil partition which was about creating a separate compartment in the subcontinent specifically for Muslims.

Hope these Pakistani Sikhs get to India anyway. Or some melting pot type Western country as asylum seekers like USA or Canada.

I saw this Pakistani film recently. It was about some 'low-caste' Hindu from Pak that strayed over the border with his son and was imprisoned for years.

I saw a bit of that movie. It was part of the Channel 4 Pakistani film season. There was another called Khamosh Pani which was about Sikhs. It showed a Gurdwara in Pakistan. I think it was Panja Sahib.

Edited by Dharma
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What the raas!

Seriously!

I saw this Pakistani film recently. It was about some 'low-caste' Hindu from Pak that strayed over the border with his son and was imprisoned for years. I'd gathered there were some Hindus there from that but I didn't know there were that many!

They say you learn a new thing every day......

The number of Hindu's in Pak is estimated to be around 1.6% to 2 % and population of Pakistan is 170 million.so it means there population in Pakistan is 2.5-3 million

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Best thing would be a full swap. Send all Muslims in India to Af/Pak/Bangla and bring non-Muslims from those places to India. Basically fulfil partition which was about creating a separate compartment in the subcontinent specifically for Muslims.

Seriously do you want history's biggest mass migration to happen.Muslim population in India is 15-20 crore

While and Hindu and sikh population will be no more than 1.5 crore .This type of situation will create mass riots looting raping

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The Hindus in Pakistan are mainly Sindhis living in Sindh and when they go migrate to India they usually end up either in Gujarat or Mumbai as there are large Sindhi communities there. The Hindus in West Punjab and NWFP are about the same number as the Sikhs there so if they are given citizenship you are talking about 20,000+ people which is not a huge number. There are a lot of Christians in West Punjab but as there was never a migration of Christians in 1947, India does not have any responsibility of them and given the ruckus the Christians in Batala created a few days ago, I doubt the Hindus and Sikhs in Punjab would want these Christians to come over.

If the discussion is over exchange of population then Malerkota's Muslims can be kicked out and these Sikhs and Hindus settled there.

Edited by tonyhp32
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Considering that many Ahmadi Muslims from Pakistan are granted asylum on the grounds of persecution, I think Sikhs in Pakistan should seriously consider their options about also applying for asylum to Western countries. One would think they'd definitely have a case for it now given the recent tragic events.

Oh, and the movie about the Hindu from Pakistan imprisoned in India is called Ramchand Pakistani. Quite a decent movie; it was sad to see how the woman prison warden treated the kid because of his caste. So much for Akhand Bharat/Pan-Hindu brotherhood.

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VEERS the iron of fate is; a bangladeshi muslim has all the support and illegally crosses into India and in 6 months time has a citizenship, the muslim M.L.As know that they r potential votebanks and thus do everything to get them settled. There are colonies in Mumbai and Delhi of these Bangladeshi muslims.

The same is not with a bangladeshi hindu or a pakistani hindu or sikh. Our people come here legally and are helpless.Little support from the community and their heads land them just hanging here for years.

Those so called champions of hindutva the bjp rss guys wont do anything to get this striaghtened. They will go on with their uselss rambling of how sikhs are hindus but at the hour of need they are not with us.

I have been feeling very down and frustrated with this indian attitude and sometimes feel are we the lesser born.Was it a sin to be born a sikh or a hindu common man ?

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The Hindus in Pakistan are mainly Sindhis living in Sindh and when they go migrate to India they usually end up either in Gujarat or Mumbai as there are large Sindhi communities there. The Hindus in West Punjab and NWFP are about the same number as the Sikhs there so if they are given citizenship you are talking about 20,000+ people which is not a huge number. There are a lot of Christians in West Punjab but as there was never a migration of Christians in 1947, India does not have any responsibility of them and given the ruckus the Christians in Batala created a few days ago, I doubt the Hindus and Sikhs in Punjab would want these Christians to come over.

If the discussion is over exchange of population then Malerkota's Muslims can be kicked out and these Sikhs and Hindus settled there.

Its true that hindu's in Pak are sindhi's and many will opt for Gujarat .But many could come to Punjab too.And by what logic India can deny asylum to pak christians?

It is not about unfinished business of 1947 ,it is about taliban islamic extremist persecution of minorities.Please remember chrisrians in India are between 2 to 6 % of population with lots of support from west, so there is no way India can give asylum to Hindu's and sikhs and deny it to christians

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VEERS the iron of fate is; a bangladeshi muslim has all the support and illegally crosses into India and in 6 months time has a citizenship, the muslim M.L.As know that they r potential votebanks and thus do everything to get them settled. There are colonies in Mumbai and Delhi of these Bangladeshi muslims.

The same is not with a bangladeshi hindu or a pakistani hindu or sikh. Our people come here legally and are helpless.Little support from the community and their heads land them just hanging here for years.

Those so called champions of hindutva the bjp rss guys wont do anything to get this striaghtened. They will go on with their uselss rambling of how sikhs are hindus but at the hour of need they are not with us.

I have been feeling very down and frustrated with this indian attitude and sometimes feel are we the lesser born.Was it a sin to be born a sikh or a hindu common man ?

In India many things work's better illegally than legally

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veers ..let us try to do what we can do for this ...how many of us are in india and how many of us would like to form a network and help our people ? lets decide a meet if we have the required number of people volunteering..lets not keep this for cribbing ..lets not be cribbers.

Moderators and site owners ..with your permission we can form a group under the name of Sikh Awareness and lets see how much we can do and on ground level what are the difficulties we face.

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