Will start protest if Bandi Singhs not freed: Kirti Kisan Union

Amritsar, November 1

The Kirti Kisan Union, one of the biggest farmers body in Punjab, has announced that it would hold a demonstration at all tehsil and district headquarters to seek the release of Sikh prisoners (Bandi Singhs) and political prisoners who have served their sentences.

During the demonstrations, which would be held on November 3, they would demand punishment for the perpetrators of Sikh ‘genocide’ in Delhi in 1984. Interestingly, an official communication released by KKU terms the 1984 incident as Sikh genocide and not a riot, a term which is mostly used by political parties, including those connected to the Left.

When asked if there was a shift in the farmer’s body’s stance on these issues, Jatinder Singh Chinna, state press secretary of the union, said, “It is not for the first time that we have demanded the release of Bandi Singhs. We have always stood for those whose democratic and human rights have been violated.”

In a stand which is similar to those of Sikh organisations, who have in the past and even now termed the 1984 events as genocide and not riots, the KKU leader said, “A riot is when people from two communities clash abruptly, but it is a genocide when people of a particular community are targeted and killed with precise planning and under a conspiracy.”

In the manner in which the Constitution was being violated and a feeling of alienation being created in Sikh psyche, the organisation feels that this is a design of the ruling dispensation to prolong its rule, said Chinna. “Any logical person would understand that keeping a person in jail after he has completed his term is illegal,” he said.