‘Confined’ Valley Sikhs appeal to Rajnath for help

Thursday, 11/08/2016

http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/punjab/-confined-valley-sikhs-appeal-to-rajnath-for-help/278929.html

Chandigarh : Claiming to be trapped amid pro-Pakistan elements, who were forcing them to join anti-India protests or face death, Sikhs in 39 villages of Kashmir have appealed to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Sikh organisations to rescue them.

The families told The Tribune that they had been living in fear in the wake of killing of Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani for over a month now. They claimed they could not move out of the houses and the state police and the Army had also not come to their aid. The villages with thick Indian population were Shomay, Chatragam, Monghama, Town Tral (where Wani was killed) and others in the Pulwama district.

They said for over a month Pakistani flags were fluttering in villages and on mobile towers. The matter has been taken up by the Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee (DSGMC) and the Shiromani Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), but so far the security forces have not reach the families.

SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar reportedly spoke to Ahmed Shah Geelani, Kashmir separatist leader, after which the Sikhs were spared from participating in a rally few days ago in protest against Wani’s killing.

Manjinder Singh Sirsa, general secretary, DSGMC, has sought immediate attention of the Union Home Minister on the matter. In a letter to Rajnath, Sirsa has highlighted the plight of the Sikh families in Kashmir.

He said the Sikhs in 39 villages had told him that they were the only pro-India population left there. Sirsa said the Sikhs were “forced to raise pro-Pakistan slogans to save their women relatives”. He claimed that pro-Pakistan elements had pasted posters outside their houses saying there was no place for pro-India people in the Valley.

Sirsa has even given details of some of the suffering families and the kind of slogans raised against them and India in the Valley. He asked the Home Minister to rush forces in the villages and save the families.

Sirsa, general secretary of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee and advisor toDeputy Chief Minister, Punjab, in a letter to the Union Home Minister has given details of the alleged horror in which Sikh families were living.

He said: “Following long protests and shutdown in Kashmir, the Sikhs in 39 villages had told me that they were the only pro-India people left there”.

Give them minority status, says Bajwa

Chandigarh: Rajya Sabha member and former Punjab Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa on Wednesday demanded minority status for Sikhs and special status for Punjabi language in Jammu and Kashmir. Participating in a special discussion on Kashmir in the Rajya Sabha, he reminded the House that the Sikhs did not migrate from Kashmir even after the Chirtti Singhpura massacre in which 35 members of the community were gunned down. About 1.25 lakh Sikhs spread across 70 villages live in the Valley while their population was about 2 lakh in the Jammu region. Bajwa said Punjabi was spoken by almost all Kashmiri leaders, including Karan Singh, Farooq Abdullah and Ghulam Nabi Azad. He recalled that Punjab was a victim of terrorism for 15 years during which about 33,000 persons lost their lives, 90 per cent of them being Sikhs.