MY FATHER WAS ON GOOD TERMS WITH AMBEDKAR: SANTOKH SINGH ‘Had lost all hope of returning to India after Pulwama attack’
JALANDHAR: A day after SAD president and former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal levelled allegations against late Master Gurbanta Singh for waving black flags to BR Ambedkar, when he visited Jalandhar in 1952, Chaudhary Santokh Singh, son of Gurbanta Singh ruled out any such incident.
He dubbed it as a false allegation and said “my father was on good terms with Ambedkar.” Ambedkar did not come to Jalandhar in 1952, it was in 1951, when he visited Jalandhar, he said. chaudhary said former SAD chief Parkash Singh Badal himself had burnt a copy of the Constitution in New Delhi.
“It is high time to assess the mind-set of Sukhbir, as he remembers the incident of 1952, but has forgotten the gruesome incident of sacrilege and police firing of Nakodar in 1986,” said Chaudhary.
Chaudhary said SAD candidate Charanjit Atwal also passed the buck to his party as far as allegation of “hushing up” the report of SIT on the incident of 1986 at Nakodar when four youths were killed in police firing. AMRITSAR: A day after being repatriated from Pakistan, Indian fishermen recalled tales of horror and how they lost the hope of returning to India when a warlike situation emerged between the neighbouring countries in the aftermath of Pulwama attack.
100 fishermen, who were arrested for trespassing into Pakistani waters, were repatriated from Pakistan via Attari-wagha border on Monday evening. They have been kept in Amritsar’s Red Cross Bhawan, from where they will leave for Gujarat on Wednesday. The released fishermen say they were confined to barracks after Pulwama attack.
“I along with 43 other fishermen was arrested by Pakistani coast guards for entering into the neighboring country’s territory in December 2017. We were lodged in a Karachi jail in Pakistan. There were around 500 Indian prisoners in the jail. In February, when the war-like situation emerged, all Indian prisoners were confined to three different barracks. We were not allowed to come out of the barracks even for a minute,” said Rohit, 40, of Gir Somnath district in Gujrat.another fisherman Mukesh, 20, said, “In February, the jail officials told us that a war has broke out between India and Pakistan and thus we were to be confined to barracks until the situation normalises. After hearing this, some of us had lost the hope of returning to our country. ”
“Earlier, the jail officials used to tell us that we would be released soon. But after the situation escalated in February, no one told us anything about our release,” said Bharat, 23.
Another fisherman Dhanu, 45, said, “We are very happy that finally we are in our country. As there is no clear demarcation in the Arabian Sea, we totally rely on the GPRS system in boats. But sometimes it too fails and we inadvertently cross the border. ”
Most fishermen do not own boats and work on salary ranging between ₹15,000 to ₹20,000 per month. “We are forced to do the same work after returning to Gujrart as there is no other source of income,” said a fisherman.