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| Bhai Pal Singh Ji |
The illustrious Punjab police are at it again. Once again an innocent Sikh has been framed, arrested and tortured by the protectors of the law in East Punjab. This time it was Bhai Pal Singh, 60, a French citizen, Sikh preacher and humantarian worker, especially among the poor farmers of Punjab.
Although the cops say that they dug up weapons, ammunition and explosives, the neighbours say that nothing was dug at all. Is it possible that the Punjab police, not noted for their good intelligence (pun intended), have mistaken "Tat Khalsa," a religious movement with "Babbar Khalsa," a proKhalistan group, believed to be terroristic by some. Here is one instance of what seems to be such confusion: Tat Khalsa supporting activities of Sikh terrorists, claims Punjab police.
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| Don't be fooled by the turbans; these are not friends of the Sikhs! |
One of the men arrested with him has been severely tortured and is near death. Pal Singh's health is very frail and it is mostly likely he could not survive torture at the gentle hands of the Punjab police. Harminder Kaur, in the Facebook page, Free Pal Singh, reports that "a familly friend has visited Pal Singh and said he was very weak."
So what can any of us do, other than sit and wring our hands? The first thing to do is to be informed. Here is some help to get you started.
Information is not easy to come by. This in itself is suspicious to me. I am relying primarily on two Facebook pages, Free Pal Singh and Voices For Freedom. I ask you to go there and join these two pages. Facebook is sometimes silly and frivolous, true; it is also very powerful.
First, the chronology, as Reported by Voices For Freedom:
Timeline of events:
Based on the reports received by Voices For Freedom
-17th July: Pal Singh was arrested at 7:00pm, as per an eye witness.
-17th July: Pal Singh was dropped at his house at 1pm.
-22nd July: Pal Singh was again arrested at at 1:30pm. No charges were levied against him.
-23rd July: The Panjab Police raids his home in Village Dandowal, Jalandhar district at 3 different times on the same day: 4:00 am, 1:00pm and 7:00pm while he was still in custody. No charges were levied on him.
-26th July: Pal Singh legal counsel, Rajwinder Singh Bains, files habeas corpus for Pal Singh
-27th July: Panjab Police presents Pal Singh in front of the magistrate late at night and gets his remand extended till 30th July.
- morning 28th July: the habeas corpus petition was taken up by Justice Arvind Kumar who had appointed a warrant officer to trace Pal Singh
- afternoon 28th July: The Panjab Police in a press conference says that Pal Singh was arrested from Jalandhar. As from eye witness’s and reports received by VFF, which are corroborated by the Times of India report, Pal Singh was arrested from his home village, a clear discrepancy.
- 30th July: Punjab police presented Pal Singh in front of the judge and requested another remand of 7 days, the judge allowed 1 day
- 31st July, Punjab police presented Pal singh in court and the out the outcome – not known yet
Based on information from a village fellow Gurmukh Singh who reported, said that the Panjab Police took Pal Singh to his fields alone, sat with him for almost an hour in the field and then took him to his residence and from their drove him back to the jail. No news or journalists were invited and nothing was seen being carried with them. Next morning zeenews reports that that “Pal Singh told the interrogators that he had kept a large quantity of explosives, arms and ammunitions near his residence at his village Dhandowal. He led a police team to the spot and handed over the consignment consisting of 15 Kilogram RDX, 3 detonators, 45 caliber sub-machine gun, 150 cartridges, 45 caliber, 1 Magazine AK 47, 100 cartridges of AK 47 and 3 packets fuse wire, the police added”
Gaping gaps appear in the story requiring a re-investigation and a CBI enquiry. Voices For Freedom has contacted the National Human Rights Commission in India, seeking the safety of Pal Singh and to initiate a CBI inquiry.
Panjab police has a nefarious record of violating human rights and making concocted stories.
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Next, a few questions and links:Who is Pal Singh?
What is the official story of his arrest? This is a lot of nonsense, but it is useful to know the official story.
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| Click on picture to see larger, readable page. |
What really happened at his arrest? (See the Timeline above)
What can I do?
Here is a list of human rights organisations that we would like to mobilise to help Bhai Pal Singh ji. Please visit each of them asking for help for our brother.
Amnesty International
http://www.amnesty.org/
Avocats Sans Frontières
http://www.avocatssansfrontieres-france.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=173&Itemid=129&lang=en
The Advocates for Human Rights
http://www.mnadvocates.org/
Giste
http://www.gisti.org/
Human Rights Watch
http://www.hrw.org/
International Coalition against Enforced Disappearances
http://www.icaed.org/the-coalition/
UN Watch
http://www.unwatch.org/site/c.bdKKISNqEmG/b.1277549/k.D7FE/UN_Watch__Monitoring_the_UN_Promoting_Human_Rights.htm
World Organisation Against Torture
http://www.omct.org/
Asian Human Rights Commission (Asia)
http://www.ahrchk.net/
Asian Centre for Human Rights (Asia)
http://www.achrweb.org/countries/india.htm
All pictures are from the Free Pal Singh Facebook page except that of the Punjab Police, which is from in.com.
Guru Teghbahadur ji sacrificed his life because Aurengzeb wanted to turn every HINDU into ISLAM.
ReplyDeleteThere are countless such stories where our Gurus raised their voice against the atrocity on hindus.
And the result of all this is that people make fun of our religion or jokes on us. Our ancestors never dreamt of this image of SIKHs in india.
Last month I went to Vaishno Devi , And an unknown Hindu guy told me "Yaar jahan dekho aaj kal sardar hi sardar hain , Badi tezi se bad rahi hain in ki aabadi" and my reply was "Ke tu RSS da member lagda hain menu .... Aabadi badh bhi rahi hain aur RAJ bhi aapna hi hoga". I am not afraid of these people. But for few days I felt that I am like a foreigner in my own country. And yes from my own such kidaa experiences I feel that this is not my country and can never be. It is just a sort of punishment that we are going thru because at the time of partition , Gandhi and Nehru played games with sikh leaders and somehow convinced them to stay in india only and the Muslims were wise enough to raise the demand for a separate country.
I know all the Hindus are not like this but still 70-80% are. And these people are free to torture these innocent SIKHS just bcoz they are SIKHS and not hindus.
Manpreet ji,
ReplyDeleteAnd who do they come whining to when situations they need a champion for come up"
Yep. And we're always there.
In between times, they give us a hard time and even claim the we don't exist; we're really hindus, they say. And do all sorts of things that even Aurangzeb didn't do.
Hey, I have an idea. What if India had a major crisis, like maybe Pakistan or China invading, and the Sikhs didn't save the hindus' bums? Just a thought.
Such an outrage! Although I won't claim to have been surprised. It's very natural and perfectly understandable that the Indian police would find hidden ammunition and weapons where they need them.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I don't have a Facebook page anymore since I deactivated it, I will write to the human rights organizations and make sure that word gets out. Try to ignore such cases today, and you'll be the victim tomorrow!
Dear H. Maryam ji,
ReplyDeleteThese things cause me immeasurable pain. Having been a social activist for 45 years (really!), I have learned how to not let these things inside of me. This one got in anyway. He is a sweet, kind, gentle man whose health is not good. Sadly, I expect he probably won't survive this ordeal. I hope otherwise. The last I heard, he was receiving some medical care.
Fortunately, my religion, like yours reserves very high honours for our true shaheeds.
And I was the victim yesterday, saved by a Canadian passport. Perhaps that's one reason that I am so passionate about these cases.
manjeet n mai or whatever ur name is u remind me one thing that this is kalguy n u r part of it .....in this secular country all we want that u mad ass thing what u r thinking right now .....we carry soon u find what u doing is right or wrong
ReplyDeletemahesh sharma ji,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Harinder Kaur. "Mai" has been my nickname since birth. It is what most of my friends call me. What those who would be my enemies call me is unprintable.
If you look at the end of each post, you will see under "Reactions," the option: You're insane. I suggest you check that if you think I'm mad. That's what that option's for.
As I have said many times, time will tell. We must wait and see what happens. And India, in fact, is about as secular as the Vatican.