Community being discriminated against in state, say Sikhs

Tribune News Service

Jammu, April 20

Sikh organisations today alleged that the minority Sikh community in Jammu and Kashmir was being discriminated against in every field of life and no justice had been done to them with regard to anti-Sikh riots.

“The microscopic minority in J&K is being continuously ignored over Punjabi language and minority status. Sikhs, being permanent residents of this disputed region of the world, are deeply concerned over the continued hostility between two nuclear nations — India and Pakistan — on account of unresolved dispute on J&K and a threat to global peace and security,” Gurdev Singh, president, Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar), told reporters here.

Flanked by Narinder Singh, chairman, Sikh Intellectuals Circles, J&K, and other Sikh representatives, he disclosed that they had also submitted a memorandum to the visiting Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan on behalf of the J&K Sikh community to exert pressure on the Government of India for declaring 1984 anti-Sikh riots as genocide and punishing the guilty.