To continue support boycott of Indian officials in overseas gurdwaras
American Sikh Council demands release of Jaggi Johal
New Jersey, January 30, 2018: The American Sikh Council (ASC) has again raised the demand of the release of Scottish National Jagtar Singh Johal aka Jaggi Johal who has been behind bars on the allegations of target killings in Punjab.
The council has also sought that the politicians who allegedly hatched this nefarious plot against an innocent British-Sikh citizen, be taken to task.
The ASC, alleging the incessant meddling by the Indian intelligence in the internal affairs of the Sikh Faith also reiterated its call to all gurdwaras across the Diaspora to not allow any Indian government official to speak from their stages.
As per the emailed statement, the American Sikh Council (ASC) alleged that human rights activists like Johal have been continually targeted by the Indian government for illegal detention under the pretext of arresting a suspected terrorist.
It said that the most recent news updates suggest that the “convoluted and obtuse” laws of India are being used to obfuscate and delay the illegal arrest of an innocent man, so that the Indian authorities can continue to torture and ‘further interrogate Jaggi to extract more information’ according to the Times of India reports dated January 17, 2018.
“Jagtar Singh Johal is being made an example by the Indian Hindutva forces to show the Sikh diaspora that Sikhs are not safe anywhere if they speak up for ‘human rights’ or ‘Sikh rights’ and will be persecuted and prosecuted for standing up for basic human dignity and liberty,” it further alleged.
Johal, a 30 year old Sikh, born in Glasgow, Scotland, living in Dumbarton, UK was detained in Jalandhar, on November 4, 2017 while shopping in Jalandhar with his newly-wed wife and a female cousin. He was already in Punjab for nearly five weeks, since October 2, 2017.
The Indian government and its leaders love ‘mainstreaming’ all and any disruptive minorities, so that they fall in line with fascist Hindutva. This type of behavior by a government will only further alienate the common citizen, especially religious minorities rather than unifying people, alleged the ASC.
It was also claimed in the statement that Johal, the alleged owner of the www.neverforget84.com has a fairly comprehensive website outlining all the serious human rights abuses meted out to the Sikhs of Punjab and elsewhere. There is absolutely nothing on the website that can be construed as subversive or influencing anyone in any negative manner. There are many websites in the diaspora focused on the ‘Sustained Sikh Genocide 1984 -1998’.