
Radical Desi held a candle-light vigil and protest against growing state repression in India, on Sunday, January 12 in Surrey. Three Sikh men were killed by the Indian police in Pilibhit in December, after being branded as pro-Khalistan militants. Human rights activists believe that these were extra-judicial murders committed under mysterious circumstances by the police forces of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.
While the government claims that the victims died in a shootout with the cops, the sequence of events suggests otherwise. The participants held signs that read “Justice for Pilibhit”. A poster carrying the pictures of the slain men was also displayed at the site of the protest. The speakers unanimously condemned the right wing Hindu nationalist government in New Delhi for trying to create fear in the minds of the minority Sikh community. Those who addressed the rally included prominent human rights defender Sunil Kumar; Sikh activist Kulwinder Singh; Radical Desi co-founder Gurpreet Singh; and a member of Indians Abroad for Pluralist India, Tejinder Sharma.
Since the event was held on the eve of Lohri, the bonfire festival of Punjab, and close to the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr, who had famously said that one has a moral responsibility to oppose unjust laws, copies of the circular of a ban on Moolwasi Bachao Manch were also burnt on the occasion. The Moolwasi Bachao Manch represents the Adivasis or the indigenous peoples of India. The Chattisgarh government in India recently banned the group for opposing projects that are devastating for the existence and livelihood of Adivasis, who are also a minority like the Sikhs.
Attacks against minorities and political dissidents have grown ever since Hindu supremacist leader Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister in 2014.