NEW DELHI—The Sikh political body Dal Khalsa has written to British Prime Minister David Cameron taking up the issues of international importance that include the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty between India and the UK, his participation in the CHOGM meet in Sri Lanka and urging the British government to support the Sikhs in their endeavors to get a UN probe into the November 1984 genocide.
Dal Khalsa’s secretary for Political Affairs, Kanwar Pal Singh has sent a letter to David Cameron requesting that he intervene, as his country is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and can influence the course of history for the Sikhs. Describing the November pogroms as nothing short of genocide, he said it was a death dance in broad daylight.
The letter assumes significance as Cameron has been honoured for his service to Sikhs by an England based Sikh group. Referring to the partition of the Indian sub-continent in 1947, the letter put the onus of the Sikh plight on Great Britain.
“As you are visiting India in the month of November, we cannot but recall the conspiracy of silence of the West which witnessed the anti-Sikh pogrom on the streets of Delhi in November 1984, but despite a passage of 29 years, has chosen to remain silent,” reads the two page letter faxed to the British High Commissioner to India in Delhi.
The letter stated that “as you are descending on Indian soil on Nov 14, we request you to prevail upon Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to boldly ask the UN to investigate Nov 1984 killings of Sikhs.”
The pro-freedom Sikh group also expresses its discontent on Cameron’s participation in the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo. “While your Canadian counterpart Mr Stephen Harper has chosen to boycott CHOGM on account of the ‘human rights violations and extra-judicial killings’, it is highly improper for you to participate in the event and provide legitimacy to the present day rulers of Sri Lanka, whose hands are soaked in the blood of innocent Tamils.”
Commenting on Cameron’s statement that an international inquiry into allegations of war crimes in Sri Lanka was needed, the Dal Khalsa spokesperson said that what applies to Sri Lanka, applies to India too. “India, while suppressing Sikh as well as Kashmir movements for right to self-determination too had committed grave human rights abuses,” he added.
Expressing their deep concern over the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty between India and the UK, he said under the garb of this treaty the Indian authorities might launch a fresh wave of witch-hunting of so-called “hardliner” Sikhs in the UK.
Demanding that the parameters of this Treaty should be made public, he urged the British government not to facilitate a fresh chapter of injustice against the Sikhs living in the UK upholding the cause of freedom and justice of the Sikh people in their homeland.
