Akal Takht jathedar condemns police for Ajnala canecharge

BADAL TRYING TO GET LONG-DETAINED SIKHS OUT OF JAIL, SAYS GIANI GURBACHAN SINGH, DEFENDS FAST AS WAY OF PROTEST, THOUGH IT VIOLATES SIKH CODE

AMRITSAR: Akal Takht jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh has condemned the police for Sunday’s cane charge on the supporters of Sikh protester Surat Singh Khalsa in Ajnala and demanded that the people arrested from that scene be released.

“No one had provoked the police,” said the jathedar, referring to the raid on Khalsa’s house at Hasanpur village in Ludhiana district. “While it was important to save Khalsa’s life, there was no need to use force,” he said, referring to the police action of shifting Khalsa to hospital. Even as the Sikh religious code bars hunger strike as a form of protest, the jathedar was willing to make an exception in the case of Khalsa, saying: “His protest is for a just cause, the release of Sikhs who have completed their normal jail terms.”

Giani Gurbachan Singh said Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal had made a good effort in consulting legal experts to prepare a case for the release of long-held Sikhs, “a case that the CM would now take up with the central government”. The jathedar appealed to the state government to expedite the process and requested people to keep calm meanwhile.