Dal Khalsa writes to UN Women focusing on plight and pain of Sikh women victim of Nov 1984 massacre

Amritsar, Punjab (October 30, 2013): According to information available with the Sikh Siyasat News (SSN) Sikh organization “Dal Khalsa” has approached the ‘UN Women’ focusing on the plight, pain and agony of the Sikh women victim of November 1984 massacre in Delhi and elsewhere in India.

In a communiqué to Executive Director and Under-Secretary-General of the UN Mrs PhumzileMlambo-Ngcuka, the Dal Khalsa spokesperson Kanwar Pal Singh urged UN Women to touch a hitherto untold tale –the tale of havoc caused in the lives of Sikh women during the Sikh carnage of 1984. Despite three decades, this aspect of the pogrom has not been covered in the plethora of reports compiled about this massive human tragedy, he stated.

The letter rued that UN has failed the Sikhs though the world body through its Embassy in Delhi has witnessed to the black days of November 1984, when Sikhs were slaughtered, maimed, women dishonored and children orphaned in a state-orchestrated, meticulously planned pogrom in Delhi.

“You had devoted your life upholding human rights, equality and social justice and also remaining actively involved in the struggle to end apartheid in your home country -South Africa. However, I wondered whether you are aware about the massive violence against Sikh women on the streets of Delhi on 1-2-3 November 1984”, reads the letter addressed to the executive director.

As they say it was never too late to seek justice, Dal Khalsa leader said where the United Nations has failed to pitch in, may be UN Women can take cudgels?

The Nuremberg trials, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre and other Jewish institutions still hunting for Nazi criminals provide us with hope against hope, the letter states. Taking cue from the recent arrests of 100 year old Nazi men who had indirectly participated in the genocide of the Jews, he said it was in this spirit that “we write to you”.

Urging the UN official to come out with a Status Report on Sikh Women Victims of Holocaust 1984, he said the UN Women cannot relinquish their responsibility and continue to pursue soft issues of water and sanitation and their impact on women in India and other developing nations.

The letter pinned hope that UN women will look into impact on children of this human tragedy as its devastation has been so huge that hundreds are today victims of drug abuse, many cannot afford education and far too many reel under below poverty line conditions.