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Indian Govt Murdered 35 Sikhs: U.S. Congressman

Indian Government Murdered 35 Sikhs: U.S. Congressman
Rep. Edolphus Towns Declares India a Terrorist State

By Syed Adeeb of the Information Times

WASHINGTON, DC, USA, March 23, 2000 (Information Times): U.S. Congressman Edolphus Towns (D-NY) has told the United States Congress that the Government of India has massacred 35 Sikhs in Chati Singhpura, a village about 40 miles south of Srinagar, the capital of Indian-Occupied Kashmir.

Rep. Towns said March 21: "Although the news media reported that 'Kashmiri militants' were responsible for this incident, the latest information shows that India's Research and Analysis Wing [RAW] carried out this brutal and cowardly atrocity."

Monday evening, March 20, Hindu-Indian gunmen wearing Indian Army uniforms, entered the village of Chati Singhpura Mattan, announcing they were conducting a crackdown against Kashmiri and Sikh freedom fighters. The gunmen then separated men from women in the village and opened fire at point-blank range on the Sikh men, according to published news reports.

Addressing the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressman Towns said: "There are over 700,000 Indian troops in Kashmir. How could the persons responsible for these crimes simply disappear without being detected? What motive would the Kashmiris have to kill Sikhs, who are their allies in the struggle for freedom? When these incidents occur, Mr. Speaker, one must ask who benefits from them. The only beneficiary is the Indian Government, which again divides the minorities, setting them against each other to continue their divide-and-rule strategy."

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Rep. Towns, who has declared India a terrorist state and the Government of India a terrorist government, also told the U.S. Congress: "India's pattern of terrorism is well known. It recently tried to blame the Sikhs for the murder of Christian missionary Graham Staines by arresting a Hindu man who calls himself Dara Singh despite the fact that Staines and his family were murdered by Hindu extremists allied with the ruling party [BJP]." According to the Hitavada newspaper, the Indian Government paid the late Governor of Punjab, Surendra Nath, to foment terrorist activities in East Punjab (Khalistan) and the disputed Kashmir and Jammu State to generate more repression and set minorities against each other, said the American legislator.

In the United States, Congressman Towns said, if someone tried to create violence between, say, African-Americans and Hispanics, that person would be rejected and likely arrested. "In India, this is government policy," he pointed out.

It is also disturbing that this atrocity occurs just after U.S. President Bill Clinton lifted the sanctions imposed on India after it conducted nuclear weapons tests in May 1998, said the U.S. lawmaker. Congressman Towns said: "In light of these murders, those sanctions should be reimposed and India should be declared a terrorist state. Here in Congress, we should cut off U.S. aid to India and we should declare our support for the freedom movements in Khalistan, Kashmir, Nagaland and throughout India. We must do these things to promote freedom for the people of South Asia and the world."

Rep. Edolphus Towns told the Speaker of the House that like everyone in the U.S. Congress, he was shocked and saddened to hear of the brutal murders of 35 Sikhs in Indian-Occupied Kashmir. The loss of life is a tragedy, he said and asked his colleagues to join him in expressing their sympathies to the victims' families.

Police detained an Indian man Thursday, March 23 after survivors of the massacre of 40 Sikhs told police he had shown the killers the way to their village, a police official said, according to an AP news story of March 23 datelined Srinagar, Kashmir.

Various news reports about the massacre of Sikhs in Indian-Occupied Kashmir stated that 35, 36, 39 or 40 Sikh men were murdered by the agents of the Indian Government. In its March 21 news story, the Burning Punjab ( http://www.burningpunjab.com ), an online publication which contains news and information about holocaust of Sikhs in East Punjab (Khalistan), published the following names of 35 Sikhs who were shot dead by Hindu-Indian extremists and Indian Army killers:

(1) Rajinder Singh, 42,
(2) Karnail Singh, 35,
(3) Rajan Singh, 40,
(4) Naranjan Singh, 50,
(5) Gurdeep Singh, 25,
(6) Ajeetpal Singh, 22,
(7) Joginder Singh, 26,
(8) Gurbax Singh, 35,
(9) Uttam Singh, 30,
(10) Surjit Singh, 22,
(11) Majit Singh, 30,
(12) Devinder Singh, 18,
(13) Rajinder Singh 35,
(14) Reshpal Singh, 40,
(15) Gurmeek Singh, 35,
(16) Sukha Singh, 53,
(17) Ravi Singh, 38,
(18) Jangbhadur Singh, 36,
(19) Rajdeep Singh, 18,
(20) Naseeb Singh, 50,
(21) Kulbeer Singh, 20,
(22) Darban Singh, 28,
(23) Deader Singh, 50,
(24) Gurmeet Singh, 22,
(25) Ujal Singh, 28,
(26) Charan Singh, 50,
(27) Sartaj Singh, 30,
(28) Rajnath Singh, 45,
(29) Faqir Singh, 65,
(30) Karnail Singh, 45,
(31) Sheetal Singh, 66,
(32) Ravinder Singh, 22,
(33) Jagdesh Singh, 25,
(34) Sagir Singh, 60, and
(35) Sartaj Singh, 26.
(36) Devinder Kaur died of heart attack after the brutal massacre.


[Syed Adeeb, an investigative journalist, is Chief Editor of the Information Times.]

[Publisher: Information Times, America's online international daily newspaper, Washington, DC, U.S.A. E-Mail: infotimes@rcn.com - InfoTimes: http://www.InformationTimes.com ]

[Copyright 2000 Information Times. All Rights Reserved.]

Republished by Scoop with permission from the author.


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