Amritsar: The Punjab Documentation and Advocacy Project (PDAP) has written a letter addressed to Giani Kuldeep Singh Gargaj, the Acting Jathedar of Sri Akal Takht Sahib, who was appointed by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC). The subject of the letter is: “Request regarding providing compensation by the SGPC to the victim families who secured convictions of guilty police officers through CBI courts, and to refrain from double standards in the case of Bhai Jaswant Singh Khalra.”
This letter, a copy of which is with the Sikh Siyasat News (SSN), addresses the (acting) Jathedar of Akal Takht Sahib, stating: “From 1984 to 1995, thousands of Sikh youths were killed in fake encounters by the Indian Government, Punjab Government, Punjab Police, and central security agencies, and were secretly cremated. Human rights defender Bhai Jaswant Singh Khalra, who brought the truth of these incidents to light, was also illegally abducted and disappeared by the Punjab Police, and later assassinated.”
The letter further states that PDAP, under the organization Punjab Disappeared, “has been continuously struggling since 2008 to take forward the unfinished work of Bhai Jaswant Singh Khalra. By compiling documentation of the families of the disappeared youths, crematorium records, and collecting other evidence, a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed in the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2019, presenting the details of 8,257 disappeared persons.”
Additionally, since 2015, PDAP has been consistently pursuing cases registered by the CBI, a process that is still ongoing. Out of approximately 40 cases being heard in the CBI court in Mohali, PDAP’s legal team has successfully secured strict punishments, including life imprisonment, for guilty police personnel in about 35 cases.
In its letter, PDAP requested the Acting Jathedar to issue a directive to the SGPC to “provide adequate financial compensation to all victim families who received justice through the CBI courts.” Second, “the eligible Amritdhari or Sabat Soorat children of the victim families should be given jobs in the SGPC on a priority basis.” The letter further states that “orders should also be issued to the SGPC to take appropriate action regarding Advocate Satnam Singh Kaler, who defended the guilty police officers in CBI cases and in the Bhai Jaswant Singh Khalra case, and who was appointed as the Chairman of the Gurdwara Judicial Commission on the recommendation of the SGPC.”
⊕ A COPY OF LETTER WRITTEN BY PDAP TO AKAL TAKHT:-
⊕ READ FULL NEWS – ‘Punjab Disappeared’ (PDAP) Shares Details of Its Work Over the Past 20 Years; Writes Letter to Akal Takht Sahib.
