Hoshiarpur, Punjab: Holding the (Indian) state responsible for massive human rights violations including torture, enforced disappearances’, extrajudicial killings during the heydays of militancy in Punjab, the Dal Khalsa has approached the United Nations urging the world body to intervene for the sake of justice.
Party head H S Dhami told the media that their party representatives from Europe Manmohan Singh Khalsa and Pritpal Singh Switzerland met Ms Katia Chirizzi, Senior Advisor at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights at Geneva and submitted the memo addressed to UN Secretary General. Two other members Kuldeep Singh and Sukhdev Singh also accompanied the delegation.
Both the leaders remained with the UN official for more than one hour and stressed the need to prosecute all those who formulated, planned and organized grave human rights abuses under the garb of fighting militancy.
Seeking the setting up of a Commission under the aegis of the United Nations to unearth the involuntary detentions, and death of Sikhs in fake encounters, “in the last 3 decades, we do not find any attempt by the Indian administration to look up to the cases of victims of involuntary disappearances- the worst form of rights violations.
Prithpal Singh Switzerland with UN official submitting the copy of the memorandum
“What can be more painful to a mother and father than the fact that even after a gap of so many years, they do not know whether their son is still alive or was killed extra-judicially by the central forces or by the state police?
Taking a dig at world community’s deaf silence, he said “we believe that either the world community has failed to see or is turning a blind eye to the stark reality that ethnic minorities are unsafe in India”.
The delegation apprised the UN about the fate and status of 6 prisoners for whose release Gurbakash Singh is fasting unto death since November 14, at Gurdwara near Ambala in Haryana state.
Prithpal Singh told that the Indian laws regarding release of indeterminate sentence prisoners are open to interpretation and prevarication of the executive. We feel, the Indian state is not releasing these prisoners because of their association with Sikh struggle for self determination. He said the continued detention of 6 prisoners not only violates the principle of equality enshrined in the Indian constitution but is also a clear violation of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.