The Hindu : National : Badal dubs Sikh march `separatist'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 01, 2004

National

National

Badal dubs Sikh march `separatist'

HOSHIARPUR, APRIL 30. The Shiromani Akali Dal president, Parkash Singh Badal, today dubbed the ``Sikh Freedom March" as separatist, alleging it was being patronised by the Congress.

The march, launched by the Dal Khalsa on Thursday from Akal Takht, the highest temporal seat of Sikhs in the Golden Temple complex at Amritsar, reached here today on way to Takht Damdama Sahib, the fifth Takht of the Sikhs at Talwandi Sabo in Bathinda district.

Asked to comment on the march during an interface with reporters at Piplanwala where he had come to address an election rally, Mr. Badal criticised it, saying it was separatist and being patronised by the Congress. He further alleged that it was the Congress which had promoted such separatist forces in the past in pursuance of its policy of ``divide and rule.''

The Dal Khalsa working president, H.S. Dhami, speaking at a rally outside the district courts complex here, lambasted both the Congress and the BJP as ``anti-minority and anti-Punjab'' and urged people to teach both the parties a lesson in the Lok Sabha elections. Holding both the parties responsible for ``unleashing terror'' against minorities, he said that while the Congress had let loose Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler against Sikhs, the BJP unleashed Narender Modi against the Muslims. He said first it was the Congress which undermined Sikhs for over 40 years but now Akalis (Badal) had brought in the BJP to ``cheat and harm the Sikhs.''

The Dal Khalsa leader expressed anguish over the Sikh community's indifference to the fate of former militants like Kulbir Singh Barapind, awaiting extradition to India from the United States to face trial for crimes allegedly committed by him during terrorism in Punjab in the eighties.

He said it was strange people turned out in large numbers to empathise with Mr. Badal and his son Sukhbir Badal when they were jailed on corruption charges but remained apathetic to the fate of Sikh youth languishing in jails for years.

Mr. Dhami said if the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, had the freedom to preach Hindutva ideology, Sikhs had the right to propagate their own ideology. — UNI

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