Hoshiarpur: The Dal Khalsa has decided to organize Conference and protest march on August 14 in Jalandhar on the eve of India’s 70th Independence day.

Hoshiarpur: The Dal Khalsa has decided to organize Conference and protest march on August 14 in Jalandhar on the eve of India’s 70th Independence day.

The conference will focus on denial of democratic rights, retrial of Sikh hijackers under sedition in a 36 years old case, misuse of anachronistic law (sedition) across the board and lynching of Dalits and Muslims by vigilantes in the ‘name of cow’.

The decision was taken in a meeting held under the leadership of H S Dhami, which was attended by senior activists Kanwar Pal Singh, Jasbir Singh, Ranbir Singh, Nobeljit Singh, Paramjit Singh. Venue and timing of the function will be finalized very shortly.

Dhami said the march will be a reiteration of our aspiration to be free from Indian hegemony and to uphold the legitimate rights including the right to self-determination of the people of Punjab.

He said the space for dissenting people have been reduced to negligible. “Irrespective of party in power, the govt’s waste no time in booking such people under sedition law on flimsy grounds only to stifle dissent and criticism.

Referring to cases of cross section of society, Dhami recalled how the students of JNU, Professor Geelani at DU, organizers of Sikh conclave at Chabha, 15 Dalit activists in Haryana, including two students of Kurukshetra University, Amnesty International India by Bengaluru police, 15 people celebrating the victory of Pakistani cricket team in Madhya Pardesh and activists of SFJ have been made victims of misuse of sedition laws.

Alleging that retrial of Sikh hijackers is a classic example of dark side of the justice system, Kanwar Pal Singh said  if the hijacking case against Bholanath Pandey  and Devindra Pandey from UP can be withdrawn by the Indian state, why should Satnam Singh and Tejinderpal Singh face retrial after undergoing 14 year jail term?

This was a question that’s to be answered by the so-called largest democracy in the world. There just can’t be two laws for the same offence, he said. He further said the minorities particularly Muslims and Dalits in India were reeling from rising radicalism. “The Hindutva forces feel emboldened under Modi’s rule”.