COUNCIL OF KHALISTAN
CONDEMNS BOMB BLASTS IN BOMBAY
Extensions of Remarks

HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS
OF NEW YORK
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
TUESDAY, JULY 25, 2006

Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, the Council of Khalistan has condemned the train bombings in Bombay this week. Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh, President of the Council of Khalistan, whom most of us know, said that “this is a terrible incident and shameful for whoever carried it out. Terrorism is never acceptable.''

The attacks have been attributed to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Kashmiri organization. One thing you have to say about Lashkar, though: normally, they take responsibility for what they do. But as Dr. Aulakh pointed out, they have not done so in this instance and the attack fits the pattern of the kinds of attacks carried out by the Indian government and its operatives, which the Council of Khalistan details in the release. These include the Air India bombing, the many attacks on Christian groups, the Gujarat massacre, and the fact that as the Washington Times reported, India is sponsoring cross-border terrorism in Sindh. These are not the acts of a responsible democracy.

This kind of activity is the mark of a terrorist state, Mr. Speaker. If we are serious about fighting terrorism, we should stop our aid and trade with India and we should support a free and fair plebiscite in the minority nations that seek their freedom in South Asia.

Council of Khalistan Condemns Train Bombings
Dr. Aulakh Appears on Television News

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 12, 2006 – Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh, President of the Council of Khalistan, today condemned the train bombings in Bombay in which 190 people were killed and over 660 were injured. “This is a terrible incident and shameful for whoever carried it out,” Dr. Aulakh said. “Terrorism is never acceptable.” He endorsed the request to donate blood for the victims. “We should join together to take care of the people who were victimized by this brutal attack,” he said. The Council of Khalistan leads the peaceful, democratic, nonviolent movement to liberate Khalistan, the Sikh homeland that declared its independence from India on October 7, 1987. Dr. Aulakh was interviewed on WRC-TV Channel 4 news in Washington yesterday about the bombings. Dr. Aulakh noted that the first-class cabins were bombed. “This is where the rich people rid,” he said. No one has taken responsibility for the attack, although the Indian government has blamed the Kashmiri organization Lashkar-e-Taiba.

“This is the kind of thing the Indian government is quite capable of carrying out itself,” Dr. Aulakh said. He noted that the book Soft Target shows how the Indian regime bombed its own airliner in 1985, killing 329 innocent people, to justify further repression against the Sikhs. The flight was bound for Bombay. The book quotes an investigator from the Canadian Security Investigation Service as saying, “If you really want to clear the incidents quickly, take vans down to the Indian High Commission and the consulates in Toronto and Vancouver, load up everybody and take them down for questioning. We know it and they know it that they are involved.” The book shows that within hours after the flight was blown up, the Indian Consul General in Toronto, Surinder Malik (no relation to Ripudaman Singh Malik), called in a detailed description of the bombing and the names of those he said were involved, information that the Canadian government didn’t discover until weeks later. Mr. Malik said to look on the passenger manifest for the name “L. Singh.” This would turn out to be Lal Singh, who told the press that he was offered “two million dollars and settlement in a nice country” by the Indian regime to give false testimony in the case.

India fomented and pre-planned the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat, according to a police officer who was quoted in the newspapers. Government forces were caught red-handed in a village in Kashmir, trying to burn down the Gurdwara (Sikh place of worship) and some Sikh homes, to blame the Muslims. Two independent investigations, one carried out jointly by the Movement Against State Repression (MASR) and the Punjab Human Rights Organization and the other carried out by the International Human rights Organization of Ludhiana, both concluded that Indian troops carried out the massacre of 38 Sikhs in Chithisinghpora. Both former President Bill Clinton, in his introduction to Madeleine Albright’s book, and New York Times reporter Barry Bearak came to the same conclusion. The killers dressed as “militants” but spoke to each other in the language of the Indian army. This is just one of many incidents where the Indian army or its paid “Black Cats” paramilitary have been caught carrying out terrorist incidents while trying to create the impression that they were alleged “militants.”

The Indian newsmagazine India Today reported that the Indian government created the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, identified by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization. The January 2, 2002 issue of the Washington Times noted that India sponsors cross-border terrorism in Sindh. The Indian newspaper Hitavada reported that India paid the late governor of Punjab, Surendra Nath, $1.5 billion to foment and support covert state terrorism in Punjab and Kashmir.

A report issued by MASR shows that India admitted that it held 52,268 political prisoners under the repressive “Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act” (TADA) even though it expired in 1995. Many have been in illegal custody since 1984. There has been no list published of those who were acquitted under TADA and those who are still rotting in Indian jails. Additionally, according to Amnesty International, there are tens of thousands of other minorities being held as political prisoners. The MASR report quotes the Punjab Civil Magistracy as writing “if we add up the figures of the last few years the number of innocent persons killed would run into lakhs [hundreds of thousands.]” The Indian government has murdered over 250,000 Sikhs since 1984, more than 300,000 Christians in Nagaland, over 90,000 Muslims in Kashmir, tens of thousands of Christians and Muslims throughout the country, and tens of thousands of Tamils, Assamese, Manipuris, and others. The Indian Supreme Court called the Indian government's murders of Sikhs "worse than a genocide.”

Government-allied Hindu militants have burned down Christian churches and prayer halls, murdered priests, and raped nuns. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) described the rapists as “patriotic youth” and called the nuns “antinational elements.” Hindu radicals, members of the Bajrang Dal, burned missionary Graham Stewart Staines and his two sons, ages 10 and 8, to death while they surrounded the victims and chanted "Victory to Hannuman," the Hindu monkey-faced God. The Bajrang Dal is the youth arm of the RSS. The VHP is a militant Hindu Nationalist organization that is under the umbrella of the RSS.

“Only in a free Khalistan will the Sikh Nation prosper and get justice,” said Dr. Aulakh. “This is the only issue. India is a terrorist state in which we will never escape from the repression and tyranny,” he said. “It is time to liberate Khalistan so that the Sikh Nation can live in freedom, security, prosperity, and dignity,” he said. “Remember the words of former Akal Takht Jathedar Professor Darshan Singh: ‘If a Sikh is not a Khalistani he is not a Sikh.’ The only way we can escape the terrorism and repression is to free Khalistan. Khalistan Zindabad.”

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This material is circulated by the Council of Khalistan, which is registered with the Department of Justice (DOJ) in Washington, DC under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as an agent of the Council of Khalistan, Golden Temple, Amritsar, Punjab. The material is filed with the DOJ where the required registration is available for inspection. Registration does not indicate approval of the contents by the U.S. Government.