Khalistani Movement being "revived" in the UK

[Niranjana]

SECTION: NATIONWIDE INTERNATIONAL NEWS

LENGTH: 1070 words

HEADLINE: Sikhs revive Khalistan movement

DATELINE: LONDON May 9

BODY:

Various Sikh organisations on Wednesday announced to revive Khalistan freedom movement in an organised way and passed a resolution in this regard. The announcement was made in an international conference at Gurdwara Baba Deep Singh Khalsa House, Birmingham, UK, in which leaders and workers of Sikh organisations participated.

British House of Lords member Nazir Ahmad and parliament member Khalid Mehmood also participated in the conference. Speaking on the occasion, Gurmek Singh, the exiled prime minister of Khalistan, said its Indias delusion that the movement had fizzled out, adding Sikh new generation would play its role in reviving the movement because Indias atrocities on Sikhs could not be forgotten. He said Sikhs had never accepted Indias hegemony and they were ready to organise the movement.

Khalistan freedom movement leader Mohan Singh Khalsa said there were several freedom movements going on in India.

He said the democracy in India was a myth. Lord Nazir Ahmad said right to self-determination was the basic right of every nation, and the UN had given the right to people to struggle for their freedom. He said freedom movements like in Palestine and Kashmir were based on true sentiments and one should support such movements. He said India could not suppress Khalistan freedom movement with force. He paid rich tributes to founder of the movement Dr Jagjit Singh on his demise and lauded his role in organising the movement in Britain.

Khalid Mehmood said the UN should take notice of Sikh suppression in Indian Punjab and seek reply from Indian government. British Kashmir Movement President Muhammad Ghalib said freedom movements in Khalistan and Kashmir were similar, adding India could not succeed in subjugating those who were sacrificing their lives for their freedom. Leaders of Sikh organisations from Asam and Nagaland also spoke on the occasion.

Following is the text of resolution adopted at the Khalistan conference

1. This Conference re-affirms the resolve of the Sikh Nation to secure, in accordance with its freely expressed wishes and its rights under international law, an independent sovereign Sikh State of Khalistan in the Sikh homeland. This historic decision was formally adopted by the national gathering (Sarbat Khalsa) it 1986. No political settlement of the Indo-Sikh conflict can occur until the Sikh right of self-determination is fully respected and Khalistan is liberated.

2. This Conference salutes the sacrifices of the thousands of martyrs who have laid down their lives in defending the Sikh Nation from the brutal and cowardly onslaught of the Indian state since 1978. We also honour the memory of hundreds of thousands of Sikhs who have been arbitrarily killed by security forces anti politically orchestrated mobs simply because they were Sikhs living in a state which has adopted the fascist Hindutva ideology as its established political credo. These sacrifices will not go in vain. The Sikhs will, as history shows emerge victorious.

3. As has been well documented by international human rights bodies, India has resorted to genocide In its efforts to extinguish the Sikh struggle for freedom. The murder of thousands of Sikhs in extra-judicial fake encounters by security forces, as well as mass killings by the army itself followed by secret cremations of the victims, as well as the use of illegal detentions and torture are a matter of public record.

This Conference deplores the failure of the UN to hold the Indian State to account for such grotesque abuses of human rights. It notes the same failures in relation to similar abuses directed at the people of Kashmir, the Nagas, Assamese, the people of Manipur, the Bodos and other nations held captive within the Indian state. We resolve to work politically with those nations in order to protect our national rights and to end the evil of Indian colonialism.

4. We applaud the cross party group Parliamentarians for National self-determination (PNSD) for providing platform to promote self-determination as a means of peaceful conflict resolution and as a means of securing justice on the basis of international law. We pledge to work with PNSD in advancing the cause of self-determination for the Sikhs as well as other nations. We welcome the announcement today of the Sikh Advisory Panel of the PNSD which will work alongside other PNSD working groups such as the Kurdish, Naga and Kashmiris groups.

5. This Conference pays tribute to the great contribution of the late Dr Jagjit Singh Chohan who had the vision to call for a sovereign Sikh state, based on the legitimate aspirations and rights of the Sikh Nation, long before the demand for Khalistan became internationally publicised during the infamous military assault on the Golden Temple complex in 1984. We pass on our heartfelt condolences to his family and mourn the loss of one of the key figures of the struggle for Khalistan.

6. In contrast not only this conference but history too will condemn the desertion and foolishness of those such as Parkash Singh Badal and Captain Amrinder Singh, who having once called for the creation of an independent Sikh state, have now handed a propaganda victory to the extremist right wing Hindu forces during and in the aftermath of the recent Punjab elections, by embarrassingly abandoning the riparian river water rights of Punjab, its only natural resource.

7. We further condemn as an exercise in futility and corruption, the recent and so-called Punjab elections, which the Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh himself un-ashamedly described as being devoid of any Sikh political aspiration, and during which all leading proponents of Khalistan were subject to charges of sedition and faced long-term imprisonment.

8. This conference congratulates Alex Salmond and Elfyn Lloyd for their leadership and success in the Scottish and Welsh elections respectively and we look forward to working ever more closely with the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists within PNSD, to further the cause of self-determination of emerging independent states, for whom they have become a source of inspiration.

9. The Sikhs are confident that Punjabis of all creeds will prosper in an independent, egalitarian Khalistan in which tire barriers of caste will be instantly removed, and which may further inspire the dismantling of an empire in which 3 per cent caste Brahimins control one-fifth of the Worlds population and resources.

[chatanga]

Well done.

[buckethead-the great]

good to hear. akaaall