LUDHIANA, Punjab—Supporting the cause for which Bapu Surat Singh is sitting on a fast unto death for the last 23 days, the Dal Khalsa secretary Sarbjit Singh Ghuman has asked the government to address the issue rather than forcibly detaining or force-feeding him at the civil hospital.
Surat Singh is on hunger strike seeking the release of those Sikh detainees who have completed their legal jail terms. He was forcibly picked up today from his residence at village Hasanpur near Ludhiana by a large number of policemen and is presently kept in civil hospital.
Upset over the deaf silence of the Government in redressing the prisoners issue, Surat Singh has gone on hunger strike in protest while adopting democratic means, he pointed out. He slammed the state for discriminating with prisoners incarcerated due to their political beliefs and sought release of all such political prisoners at the earliest.
He alleged that Indian laws regarding release of indeterminate sentence prisoners are open to interpretation and prevarication of the executive.
The continued detention of some prisoners not only violates the principle of equality enshrined in the Indian constitution but is also a clear violation of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
