Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Monday demanded the reservation of two seats for the patriotic Sikh community, in the Kashmir Valley and the Jammu province on the same pattern as granted to the Kashmiri Pandits.
“The Sikhs in the valley have endured the same destiny as their fellow minority community members in the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state.
As such, they deserve and need to be treated at par with their fellow sufferers,” Badal said in a letter addressed simultaneously to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
The SAD chief also asked the Union government to de-freeze eight seats of Pak Occupied Kashmir (POK) in favour of displaced persons of PoK living in Jammu and Kashmir.
He said the Sikh Community specially the Sikh from Jammu and Kashmir have been repeatedly making these demands along with other issues through the Sikh leaders from the state belonging to the state.
Badal said members of the minority Sikh community have been residing in Jammu and Kashmir since 1947 and have suffered the same hardships and torture as endured by the Kashmiri Pandits.
“The Sikh Community merely wants parity with the co-sufferers, the Kashmiri Pandits,” he added.
The SAD chief welcomed the measure of granting two seats to the Kashmiri Pandits as this would propagate inclusion of the displaced persons into the national mainstream.
“But going by the spirit of the decision to include Kashmiri Pandits, the same spirit is not being applied to the Sikh Community, because 3.5 lakhs displaced Sikh community are already living in the state despite all odds,” he added.
Badal said if this “justified demand” of the Sikh community is not accepted in the same spirit as applied to the Kashmiri Pandits, then the patriotic Sikh masses will justifiably feel “utterly discriminated against.”
The SAD chief said Sikhs of Jammu and Kashmir have always been in the forefront of the fight against the Pakistan Army and infiltrators from across the border, defending Kashmir as well as the country’s territorial integrity against foreign invasions for a long time.
“Even during extreme militancy, Sikhs of Jammu and Kashmir did not flee from their state. They instead paid a heavy price for their patriotism, sacrificing 200 lives, 36 of these in the Chittisinghpura massacre alone,” he added.
Badal said that Sikhs were not only a national minority but also a minority in Jammu and Kashmir with just 3.5 lakh population there.
