Source:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/21/world/asia/sikh-hunger-strike-india/index.html?sr=sharebar_facebook
(CNN)
-- A Sikh farmer in India has surpassed a month on a hunger strike,
demanding the release of six men from his community jailed since the
1990s during a period of a deadly Sikh separatist movement in the
country.
Gurbaksh Singh Khalsa, 48, began his protest on
November 14, his aide, Harpal Singh Cheema, told CNN.
His hunger strike brings attention to the fates of
Sikhs who were arrested and convicted for their actions during the
separatist movement, but who, unlike others, have not had their
sentences shortened.
The fact that other Indians sentenced to life have
been released earlier, but not the Sikhs, has some accusing the justice
system of discrimination against the group.
Those who support Khalsa's hunger strike say it is
long overdue that the cases of those Sikhs be reviewed.
An armed Sikh rebellion operated in Punjab, the
heartland of the faith, from the 1980s to the early 1990s, when it was
crushed.
Hiding from the massacre: 1984 remembered
Many political leaders were assassinated during the
insurgency.
India's then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was
killed by her Sikh bodyguards in October 1984, the same year she had
ordered a military raid on the Golden Temple, the holiest of the Sikh
shrines, to flush out militants holed up inside.
Three of the six convicts whose freedom Khalsa is
fighting for were arrested in 1995 for their alleged role in the
assassination of Punjab's then-Chief Minister, Beant Singh, in a car
bombing. They were sentenced to life in prison.
The others were convicted under a draconian
anti-terror law that has since been repealed, civil rights lawyer H.S.
Phoolka said.
"It is not unusual to set lifers free after they
have served 14 years in prison," Phoolka said. "These prisoners should
also be freed, as normalcy returned to Punjab long ago and they should
be joining the mainstream now."
International rights groups have accused both the
Sikh separatists and Indian forces of serious violations during the
insurgency.
The six Sikh inmates are lodged in the jails of the
federally-administered territory of Chandigarh and in Punjab, Karnataka
and Uttar Pradesh states.
Khalsa is "weak but says he will not end (his
hunger strike) until he sees those six prisoners free," his aide said.
Khalsa's protest, which has drawn support from
across the Sikh political and religious spectrum, has gained a viral
online attention, although the story is not prominent on India's
national media.
"A number of Sikhs were falsely arrested, charged
and convicted. Many of them are still in jails despite their old age.
It's my personal opinion all such prisoners — whichever community they
may belong to — should be set free now," said Sukhdev Singh Bhaur,
general secretary of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC),
the top Sikh religious administration in Punjab.
"It's up to the discretion of those governments,
administrations to reconsider their cases. We are trying our best,"
Punjab government spokesman Harcharan Bains said.
In India, state authorities can review a lifer's
case after a prisoner serving that sentence has spent 14 years, Bains
and lawyer Phoolka said.
"But, otherwise, a life sentence means sentence
until the last breath of the prisoner," Bains said.
Rights attorneys, however, say authorities are
selectively rejecting reviews of Sikh inmates incarcerated during the
Punjab militancy.
"There are numerous examples where life convicts
have been prematurely released after undergoing imprisonment of 12 to 14
years or even less," Phoolka said. "It is a great discrimination
against... because of their religious beliefs."
Meantime, Human Rights Watch, in a statement to
CNN, called upon Indian authorities not to let prisoners remain behind
the bars beyond their sentences.
"There were serious human rights abuses during the
Punjab insurgency," the human rights group said.
Both militants, with their attacks, and the
security forces, abusing the now repealed terror law, committed human
rights violations, the group said.
Sikhs and rights bodies have also accused
successive Indian governments of going soft on high-profile politicians
suspected of perpetrating a massacre of Sikhs in and round New Delhi in
the wake of Gandhi's assassination.
Official figures put the number of those killed in
the 1984 anti-Sikh attacks at 2,733 in the Indian capital alone. Human
rights activists say the death toll was much higher.
"Despite the findings of independent commissions,
government forces or officials responsible for excesses, including
during the 1984 riots, are yet to be properly prosecuted," Human Rights
Watch said in its statement.
Himself a Sikh and the country's first non-Hindu
head of government, Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh issued a public
apology for the deadly events -- 21 years after their occurrence.
"I have no hesitation in apologizing not only to
the Sikh community but the whole Indian nation because what took place
in 1984 is the negation of the concept of nationhood and what enshrined
in our Constitution. So, I am not standing on any false prestige. On
behalf of our government, on behalf of the entire people of this
country, I bow my head in shame that such thing took place," Singh told
India's Parliament in an impassioned address in 2005.