ISLAMABAD: Pro-Khalistan Sikhs joined by Pakistani community members held a protest in Houston, United States, demanding resolution of Kashmir dispute and against Modi-led Hindu nationalist Indian government for committing gross violations of human rights in occupied Kashmir.
To express support for the cause of Kashmir and demanding a separate land for Sikhs, the Sikh community members and Pakistanis, in a form of carcade with Kashmir and Khalistan flags mounted on their cars, moved through the roads and streets while chanting full-throat slogans against the Modi regime.
The protesters raised slogans of “Modi’s tour of the U.S. unacceptable.”
On the other hand, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development Zulfiqar Hussain Bukhari, aka Zulfi Bukhari, held meetings with Muslim organizations in New York for making preparations for staging a protest in the U.S. upon arrival of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Furthermore, a massive demonstration will be held outside United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) headquarters in New York when Modi will deliver his speech in the upcoming session of the UNGA.
Importantly, Sikh organizations in Indian Punjab have jointly condemned Indian government’s unilateral action of revoking special autonomy of occupied Jammu and Kashmir, and its division into two Union territories, a report in The Wire revealed.
The development is being considered “very significant” as these organizations spent three decades at odds with each other over militancy in Indian Punjab.
“Various democratic organizations of Punjab decide to stand in solidarity with the people’s movement of Kashmiris,” stated a joint press statement of 15-odd organizations ahead of a protest march scheduled for September 15 in Chandigarh.
“We will stand tooth and nail against any move of the Modi regime’s agenda of Hindutva that it is spreading in the name of ultra-nationalism, putting the lives of Kashmiris at stake now,” Lachhman Singh Sewala, General Secretary of the Punjab Khet Mazdoor Union, an offshoot of CPI-Liberation, said.
“The vested forces earlier tried to divide the people of Punjab on communal lines during the days of militancy, when the men from the security forces as well as from amongst the boys spearheading the movement had died in thousands,” he added.
11 organizations from Punjab, under the banner of ‘Solidarity Committee for Kashmiri National Struggle’, have come out in favor of the “right to self-determination of the Kashmiris”.
“Reach Chandigarh on September 15,” read posters carrying pictures of pellet-ridden and bandaged Kashmiri children. “Come out and dare to support the Kashmiri struggle for the right to self-determination and against the occupation and repression of Indian rulers,” read another.
The committee’s 11 constituents include the Punjab Students’ Union, Naujawan Bharat Sabha, Kisan Sangharsh Committee, Pendu Mazdoor Union (Mashal) and different Left-leaning industrial workers’ bodies.
