Yogi Adityanath assures to resolve issues of Sikhs in UP

Lucknow, Dec 17 Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday assured to resolve all the pending issues of the Sikh community brought to his notice by a Shiromani Akali Dal-Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) delegation, stating that no Sikh farmer will be victimised.

He also promised to withdraw all the pending cases against Sikhs with regard to the Saharanpur gurdwara clash in 2014.

The assurance was given by the Chief Minister to a high-level delegation led by SAD President Sukhbir Singh Badal. Senior SAD leader Prem Singh Chandumajra and SGPC general secretary Gurcharan Singh Grewal were also part of the delegation.

Badal told the media that the meeting was held in a positive atmosphere with relevant officials of different departments to get direct feedback about all the issues concerning the welfare of Sikhs.

Badal thanked Adityanath for taking special interest to resolve the pending cases and asserted that this would go a long way in bolstering the morale of the Sikh community in Uttar Pradesh.

Giving details, Badal said with the intervention of Adityanath, displacement of Sikhs from lands being cultivated by them had been prevented in 2020 on the request of a SAD delegation.

The UP Chief Minister, after giving a patient hearing, announced that he would not allow any Sikh farmer or Punjabi to be victimised in Uttar Pradesh.

He agreed with the SAD President that Sikh farmers had paid with their blood and sweat to make the lands they were tilling fertile. The Chief Minister asked minister of state Baldev Singh Aulakh to go through all the cases so that they could be resolved amicably. The cases include eviction notices issued to Sikh farmers in Moradabad, Bareilly and Lucknow circles.

The delegation also apprised the Chief Minister that some cases related to a clash between two communities over land belonging to a gurdwara in Saharanpur in 2014 still remain unresolved.

It said following the clash, mediation was effected between the leading members of both communities and it was decided that members of both communities would withdraw counter cases registered against each other.

The delegation said that while some cases were withdrawn, few cases persisted and solicited the intervention of the Chief Minister to resolve the issue, to which Adityanath agreed.

The delegation also apprised the Chief Minister about the Pilibhit fake encounter case of 1991 in which 10 Sikhs were killed after PAC personnel stopped a pilgrim bus and separated the male members from their families and stage three separate 'encounters'.

It said the Allahabad High Court had recently set aside the life imprisonment awarded to 43 PAC personnel in the case and sentenced them to seven-year terms.

The delegation said the Sikh community felt that exemplary punishment should be awarded in the case as innocents were killed by terming them as terrorists. It urged the Uttar Pardesh government to file a review petition in the case in the Supreme Court.

The Chief Minister assured to look into the matter sympathetically, saying that justice will be done in the case.