Chandigarh: Amid a decline in its citizens, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) — the apex physique of Sikhs in India — mentioned that it has didn’t get Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s consideration on its demand of releasing the ‘Bandi Singhs’ however determined to proceed to pursue the trigger.
The ‘Bandi Singhs’ are former Sikh militants incarcerated in varied jails throughout the nation for 3 a long time or extra now. The demand for his or her launch began over a decade in the past, with the SGPC main the trigger.
On 29 March, SGPC president Harjinder Singh Dhami mentioned it’s unlucky {that a} five-member committee constituted in December final yr by the Akal Takht — the best temporal physique of the Sikhs — to hunt the discharge of the prisoners has obtained no response from the PM regardless of a number of efforts. Dhami reiterated the demand as one of many ten resolutions handed by the SGPC basic home in its funds assembly final month.
Noting the “negative attitude” in the direction of the committee, the SGPC decision mentioned that the federal government was not severe about recognising the supremacy and dignity of the Akal Takht.
Dhami mentioned the final home resolved to ask the federal government to respect the Akal Takht and begin a mutual dialogue via the committee in order that the Sikh neighborhood doesn’t should resort to a battle.
Through the years, the difficulty of the discharge of ‘Bandi Singhs’ has emerged as an emotive topic not solely amongst hardliner Sikhs but in addition a big part of the Sikh inhabitants in Punjab.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has persistently backed the demand. Following the breakdown of its talks with the BJP about an alliance within the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls, the difficulty will probably take heart stage within the SAD marketing campaign this election.
The matter may even probably be one of many essential rallying factors in the course of the SGPC elections, anticipated later this yr. The SGPC, as soon as a 190-member physique, has misplaced 11 members to a separate gurdwara committee in Haryana and is struggling to muster a considerable citizens in Punjab. The variety of ‘keshdhari’ Sikhs (who haven’t shorn their hair) eligible to vote within the SGPC elections has decreased dramatically over the previous 13 years.
In 2011, over the past elections to the SGPC, the variety of ‘keshdhari‘ voters was 52 lakh while, this year, the number has dropped to 27.5 lakh, reflecting a disenchantment among the Sikhs in the election process.
Back in December 2022, the SGPC started a worldwide signature campaign for the release of nine ‘Bandi Singhs’. In response to Dhami, “more than 10 lakh people” had signed the SGPC demand letter despatched to the President of India in December final yr.
Final month, Akal Takht jathedar Giani Raghbir Singh mentioned that Modi ought to prolong the identical compassion that he confirmed for the eight Indian prisoners on dying row in Qatar to the Sikh prisoners languishing in jails for a very long time.
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‘It’s a protracted battle’
The motion for the ‘Bandi Singhs’ began in 2013 when the demand to launch Sikh militants jailed throughout militancy in Punjab within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties discovered a platform in organisations just like the SGPC.
Through the years, an preliminary listing of 119 such prisoners has come down to 2 dozen after a few of them accomplished their sentences whereas the protests led to different releases.
In the meantime, a sit-in protest by Quami Insaaf Morcha — a gaggle of Sikh our bodies — in search of the discharge of 9 ‘Bandi Singhs’ has continued in Mohali on the Punjab-Chandigarh border since January final yr.
Though the sit-in protest has not seen a lot exercise previously few months, in February final yr, the protesters clashed with police after they had been stopped from marching to Chandigarh.
The protest additionally made information when a number of the protesters attacked the car of SGPC President Dhami whereas he was leaving the protest web site after addressing a gathering.
All of the 9 prisoners, barring one, have already spent 25-32 years in jail. Seven of the 9 had been convicted within the assassination of Punjab CM Beant Singh. Two of the seven had been on dying row.
Beant Singh and 16 others had been killed 31 August 1995 by suicide bomber Dilawar Singh Babbar in Chandigarh. In 2007, a CBI courtroom handed dying sentences to Jagtar Singh Hawara and Balwant Singh Rajoana for his or her function within the assassination.
5 others — Gurmeet Singh, Lakhwinder Singh Lakha, Shamsher Singh, Paramjit Singh Bheora, and Jagtar Singh Tara — had been sentenced to life.
Whereas a decrease courtroom has since commuted Hawara’s dying sentence to life time period, a mercy petition for commuting Rajoana’s dying sentence is pending earlier than the Supreme Court docket.
In January, the Quami Insaaf Morcha marked one yr of its sit-in protest by holding gatherings outdoors greater than a dozen toll plazas in Punjab, forcing the authorities to not cost any toll from commuters.
“There are no issues pending in courts about the release of the ‘Bandi Singhs’… the decision to release them has to be taken by the government, and till that happens, the protest will continue. It’s a long battle,” advocate Amar Singh Chahal, one of many Morcha leaders, instructed ThePrint.
Final week, the Punjab and Haryana Excessive Court docket pulled up the Punjab authorities for not clearing the roads blocked by the Quami Insaaf Morcha on the Mohali-Punjab border.
Throughout the resumed listening to of a public curiosity litigation filed by a highway security non-governmental organisation, Arrive Secure, a division bench headed by performing chief Justice G.S. Sandhawalia mentioned the state authorities was given a number of alternatives however didn’t take away the blockade.
The division bench added that the protesters utilizing the Guru Granth Sahib to attract legitimacy for his or her protest was no cause for the federal government to not act towards them.
Arrive Secure had moved a petition within the excessive courtroom final yr, in search of the removing of the blockade on the highway as a result of it was inflicting inconvenience to commuters, aside from being a flash level that might set off a regulation and order drawback.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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