Uttaranchal Pradesh Incident Wake-Up Call
Learn From Incident and Free Khalistan

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 3, 2006 – Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh, President of the Council of Khalistan, today called the bulldozing of Sikh farmers’ houses in Uttaranchal Pradesh and their expulsion from the state a “wake-up call” for the Sikh Nation. He said it is time for Sikhs to learn the lessons of the expulsion and free Khalistan. “The government apologized for the Delhi massacres, then they carry out new acts of repression against us,” he said. “As long as we continue under Indian tyranny, this kind of repression will continue.”

The government permits outsiders to buy land in Punjab, but dos not allow Sikhs to buy land in Rajasthan or in Himachal Pradesh. “The discrimination against the Sikhs continues,” he said. It is just one more reason why we need our own country. When Khalistan is free, Sikhs will be able to come home and be safe and protected. Our interests will be represented the world over. But today, we are salves under Indian occupation.

This incident was the latest chapter in a pattern of repression against the Sikh Nation. Last year on two separate occasions, Sikhs belonging to Dal Khalsa were arrested and charged for making speeches in support of Khalistan and raising the Khalistani flag. “When did speaking and raising a flag become crimes in a democracy?” Dr. Aulakh asked.

History shows that multinational states such as India are doomed to failure. Countries like Austria-Hungary, India’s longtime friend the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and others prove this point. India is not one country; it is a polyglot like those countries, thrown together for the convenience of the British colonialists. It is doomed to break up as they did. “We only hope that the breakup will be peaceful,” said Dr. Aulakh.

“It is clear that India does not accept Sikhs,” said Dr. Aulakh. “The Indian government continues to persecute and kill our Sikh brethren,” he said. “Sardar Atinder Pal Singh’s question of 13 years ago is still the question facing the Sikh Nation: Why don’t we liberate Khalistan? As Professor Darshan Singh, a former Jathedar, said, ‘If a Sikh is not for Khalistan, he is not a Sikh’,” Dr. Aulakh noted. An Indian newspaper reported on Tuesday that Sikhs in India had decided not to celebrate Indian Independence Day, but instead would hoist a black flag for the occasion. “This shows that the drive for freedom is still alive in Punjab,” he said.

The Indian government has murdered over 250,000 Sikhs since 1984, more than 200,000 Christians since 1948, over 90,000 Muslims in Kashmir since 1988, 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."

Indian police arrested human-rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra after he exposed their policy of mass cremation of Sikhs, in which over 50,000 Sikhs have been arrested, tortured, and murdered, then their bodies were declared unidentified and secretly cremated. He was murdered in police custody. His body was not given to his family. The police never released the body of former Jathedar of the Akal Takht Gurdev Singh Kaunke after SSP Swaran Singh Ghotna murdered him. No one has been brought to justice for the Khalra kidnapping and murder. Yet according to a report by the Movement Against State Repression (MASR), 52,268 Sikhs are being held as political prisoners in India without charge or trial, some since 1984!

Missionary Graham Staines was murdered along with his two sons, ages 8 and 10, by a mob of militant, fundamentalist Hindu nationalists who set fire to the jeep, surrounded it, and chanted “Victory to Hannuman,” a Hindu god. None of the people involved has been tried. The persons who have murdered priests, raped nuns, and burned Christian churches have not been charged or tried. The murderers of 2,000 to 5,000 Muslims in Gujarat have never been brought to trial. An Indian newspaper reported that the police were ordered to stand aside in that massacre and not to get involved, a frightening parallel to the Delhi massacre of Sikhs in 1984.

“Only in a free Khalistan will the Sikh Nation prosper and get justice,” said Dr. Aulakh. “India should act like a democracy and allow a plebiscite on independence for Khalistan and all the nations of South Asia,” Dr. Aulakh said. “We must free Khalistan now.”