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“SIKHS OBSERVE ANNIVERSARY OF GOLDEN TEMPLE ATTACK” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E1391 on July 25, 2002.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
SIKHS OBSERVE ANNIVERSARY OF GOLDEN TEMPLE ATTACK
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HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS
of new york
in the house of representatives
Thursday, July 25, 2002
Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to note a historic occasion that is being observed this week. In addition to our observance of D-Day, the day that Allied troops landed in Europe to begin the attack on Nazi Germany, this week marks the anniversary of India's military attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar and the brutal massacre of 20,000 Sikhs in June 1984. Recently, Sikhs from the East Coast gathered to commemorate this event in front of the Indian Embassy here in Washington. Similar events have been held or will be held in New York, London, and many other cities.
The Golden Temple attack was an attack on the seat of the Sikh religion. It forever put the lie to India's claim that it is secular and democratic. How can a democratic state launch a military attack on religious pilgrims gathered at the most sacred site of their religion? The Indian troops shot bullet holes through the Sikh holy scriptures, the Guru Granth Sahib, and took boys as young as eight years old out in the courtyard and shot them in cold blood. This set off a wave of repression against Sikhs that continues to this day.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to put the flyer from that event into the Record now. It contains a lot of important information about the Golden Temple attack that shows the tyranny just under the facade of Indian democracy.
Indian Government Genocide Against the Sikh Nation Continues to This
Day
From June 3 to 6, 1984 the Indian Government launched a military attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the holiest of Sikh shrines and seat of the Sikh religion. This is the equivalent of attacking the Vatican or Mecca. 38 other Gurdwaras throughout Punjab Khalistan were simultaneously attacked. More than 20,000 Sikhs were killed in these attacks.
Desecration of the temple included shooting bullets into the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh holy scripture, and destroying original Hukam Namas written by hand by the ten Sikh Gurus. Young Sikh boys ages 8 to 12 were taken outside and asked if they supported Khalistan, the independent Sikh homeland. When they responded ``Bole So Nihal,'' a religious statement, they were shot to death in cold blood by the brutal Indian troops.
The Golden Temple attack launched an ongoing campaign of genocide against Sikhs by the Indian government that continues to this day. Punjab, Khalistan, the Sikh homeland, has been turned into a killing field.
The Golden Temple attack made it clear that there is no place for Sikhs in India.
The Movement Against State Repression issued a report showing that India is holding at least 52,268 Sikh political prisoners, by their own admission, in illegal detention without charge or trial. Some of them have been held since 1984. Many prisoners continue to be held under the repressive, so-called ``Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA),'' even though it expired in 1995. According to the report, in many cases, the police would file TADA cases against the same individual in different states ``to make it impossible for them to muster evidence in their favor.'' It was also common practice for police to re-arrest TADA prisoners who had been released, often without filing new charges.
``In November 1994,'' the report states, ``42 employees of the Pilibhit district jail and PAC were found guilty of clubbing to death 6 Sikh prisoners and seriously wounding 22 others. They were TADA prisoners. Uttar Pradesh later admitted the presence of around 5000 Sikh TADA prisoners.'' Over 50,000 Sikhs have been made to disappear since 1984.
Sikhs in Punjab, Khalistan formally declared independence on October 7, 1987, to be achieved through the Sikh tradition of Shantmai Morcha, or peaceful resistance. Sikhs ruled Punjab from 1765 to 1849 and were to receive sovereignty at the time that the British quit India.
While India seeks hegemony in South Asia, the atrocities continue.
India has openly tested nuclear weapons and deployed them in Punjab, weapons that can be used in case of nuclear war with Pakistan. These warheads put the lives of Sikhs at risk for Hindu Nationalist hegemony over South Asia. The Indian government is run by the BJP, the militant Hindu nationalist party in India, and is unfriendly to the United States. In May 1999, the Indian Express reported that Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes led a meeting with representatives from Cuba, Russia, China, Libya, Iraq, and other countries to build a security alliance ``to stop the U.S.''
In March 42 Members of the U.S. Congress from both parties wrote to President Bush asking him to help free tens of thousands of political prisoners.
India voted with Cuba, China, and other repressive states to kill a U.S. resolution against human-rights violations in China.
India is a terrorist state. According to published reports in India, the government planned the massacre in Gujarat
(which killed over 5,000 people) in advance and they ordered the police to stand by and not to interfere to stop the massacre. Last year, a group of Indian soldiers was caught red-handed trying to set fire to a Gurdwara and some Sikh homes in a village in Kashmir.
According to the Hitavada newspaper, India paid the late Governor of Punjab, Surendra Nath, $1.5 billion to organize and support covert state terrorism in Punjab and Kashmir.
CONTINUING REPRESSION AGAINST SIKHS
Since 1984, India has engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing and murdered tens of thousands of Sikhs and secretly cremated them. The Indian Supreme Court described this campaign as ``worse than a genocide.''
The book Soft Target, written by two Canadian journalists, proves that India blew up its own airliner in 1985 to blame the Sikhs and justify more genocide. The Indian government paid over 41,000 cash bounties to police officers for killing Sikhs, according to the U.S. State Department.
Indian police tortured and murdered the religious leader of the Sikhs, Gurdev Singh Kaunke, Jathedar of the Akal Takht. No one has been punished for this atrocity and the Punjab government refused to release its own commission's report on the Kaunke murder.
Human-rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra was kidnapped by the police on September 6, 1995, and murdered in police custody. His body was not given to his family. Rajiv Singh Randhawa, the only eyewitness to the police kidnapping of Jaswant Singh Khalra, was arrested in front of the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Sikhism's holiest shrine, while delivering a petition to the British Home Minister asking Britain to intervene for human rights in Punjab.
In March 2000, 35 Sikhs were massacred in Chithisinghpora in Kashmir by the Indian government.
Since Christmas 1998, India has carried out a campaign of repression against Christians in which churches have been burned, priests have been murdered, nuns have been raped, and schools and prayer halls have been attacked. On January 17, 2001, Christian leaders in India thanked Sikhs for saving them from Indian government persecution. Members of the Bajrang Dal, part of the pro-Fascist Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), the parent organization of the ruling BJP, burned missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons, ages 8 and 10, to death while they slept in their jeep. The RSS published a booklet last year on how to implicate Christians and other minorities in false criminal cases.
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