India to bring back 700 more Sikhs ‘tortured’ in Afghanistan

NEW DELHI: India is preparing to bring back around 700 more Sikhs who were “tortured” in Afghanistan. These Sikhs will be brought back in several batches. After the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was passed, first batch of 11 Sikhs reached India on July 26. The first batch of returnees received a warm welcome by the BJP leaders at the airport.

The first batch of the Sikh families is living in a gurdwara in Delhi. The Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee is looking into the living arrangements for them.

BJP national secretary Sardar RP Singh told IANS on Saturday: “After the first batch, around 700 more Sikhs are willing to come from Afghanistan. The Indian embassy in Afghanistan is in touch with them. We are working out on bringing them back to India. Relatives of most of them live in Tilak Nagar, so there will be no problem in making living arrangements for them.”

Singh said it was only due to the decision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that “Sikh brothers suffering from torture in Afghanistan” are been brought back to India.

“If the CAA was not made, the victims of religious persecution in the neighbouring countries would have not got the citizenship in India,” said Singh.

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court will hear the plea of former Bishop Franco Mulakkal, seeking direction to discharge him from the nun rape case, on August 5.

A bench headed by Justice AS Bopanna will hear Mulakkal’s plea for dropping of rape charges against him.

Mulakkal had filed the plea in the top court where he claimed to be innocent and said he was implicated after he questioned the financial dealings of the victim nun.

He approached the top court after the Kerala high court rejected his plea for discharge from the case.

The prosecution in the high court had contended that there was strong evidence against him and he was moving pleas frequently to delay the trial.

He had approached the Kerala High Court after a trial court in Kottayam had dismissed the plea to discharge him from the case in March.

In June 2018, the nun, who is a member of the Missionaries of Jesus congregation based in Punjab, had complained to the police in Kottayam that Jalandhar Bishop had raped her several times between 2014 and 2016.

After several rounds of questioning, the special investigation team (SIT) of Kerala Police arrested him in September 2018.

The SIT had filed the chargesheet against him last year.