Indian Intelligence Plans to Assassinate Sikh Leaders
INDIAN INTELLIGENCE PLANS TO ASSASSINATE SIKH LEADERS -- (Extensions of Remarks - December 14, 2007)
[Page: E2585]
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SPEECH OF
HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS
OF NEW YORK
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2007
* Mr. TOWNS. Madam Speaker, while Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh, President of the Council of Khalistan, was visiting Belgium, he was informed of a very sinister plan by the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the intelligence service of the Indian government. RAW is the agency behind the Golden Temple attack and also, according to the excellent and well-documented book Soft Target, the agency behind the Air India bombing, which was the largest aviation terror attack prior to September 11.
* According to sources in Belgium, which is the European headquarters of RAW, RAW is planning to assassinate Sikh leaders using Sikh operatives here in the United States. This sounds very much like their strategy in the Air India attack. Apparently, they haven't been able to come up with new terror tactics in 22 years.
* One of the targets is a former Jathedar of the Akal Takht, which is the highest office in the Sikh religion. The Sikh leaders who are being targeted have one thing in common: they are supporters of freedom and sovereignty for Khalistan, the Sikh homeland that declared its independence from India in 1987.
* You might also remember, Madam Speaker, that the Washington Times reported on January 2, 2002 that India was sponsoring cross-border terrorism in the Pakistani province of Sindh.
* Given this terrorist record, why are American taxpayers being asked to support such a country? Although India proclaims itself democratic, the real India is the one that plans to assassinate Sikh leaders for seeking freedom, bombs its own airplanes to create an excuse to kill its Sikh minority, sponsors cross-border terror, and carries out other such reprehensible acts. Yet many in this country are blinded by India's democratic claims.
* The time has come to say no more, Madam Speaker. We must stop our aid to this regime until every citizen within its borders and those outside can live securely in freedom, comfortable that no oppression, torture, or assassination plots will be aimed at them. We must demand a free and fair vote for all the people seeking their freedom from this brutal regime. And someone should call the FBI.
* Plotting to assassinate Americans and others, no matter the circumstances, is an attack on us all, Madam Speaker. I hope that all my colleagues will join me in condemning it.
* I would like to place the Council of Khalistan's news release on the RAW assassination plot into the Record for the information of my colleagues.
RAW PLANNING TO ASSASSINATE SIKH LEADERS
Washington, D.C., December 6, 2007--During his recent visit to Belgium, Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh, President of the Council of Khalistan, was informed that agents of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the intelligence agency of the Indian government, plan to assassinate prominent Sikh leaders, including a former Jathedar of the Akal Takht. Belgium is the European headquarters of RAW.
A very reliable Sikh source, who intervened to stop the assassination of a prominent Sikh leader, told Dr. Aulakh about the plot The RAW plot seeks to use Sikhs in the United States as their operatives.
India is determined to destroy the Sikh Nation and the Sikh religion, both inside and outside India. They are determined to eliminate the pro-Khalistan Sikh leadership worldwide so they can continue to carry out their violent rule over the Sikhs and absorb the Sikh religion into Hinduism. Indian intelligence is using every trick available to them to achieve this goal.
According to the book Soft Target by Zuhair Kashmeri of the Toronto Globe and Mail and Brian McAndrew of the Toronto Star, it was RAW that was responsible for the bombing of an Air India flight in 1985 that killed 329 people. Two Canadian Sikhs were acquitted on charges related to the bombing by a Canadian judge who said the evidence against them was ``not credible.'' It was RAW that was responsible for the attack on the Golden Temple, the seat of the Sikh religion, and 38 other Gurdwaras in June 1984, an operation that killed more than 20,000 Sikhs.
The Indian government has murdered over 250,000 Sikhs since 1984, more than 300,000 Christians since 1948, over 90,000 Muslims in Kashmir since 1988, and tens of thousands of Tamils, Assamese, Manipuris, Dalits, and others. The Indian Supreme Court called the Indian government's murders of Sikhs ``worse than a genocide.''
Indian police arrested human-rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra after he exposed their policy of mass cremation of Sikhs, in which over 50,000 Sikhs have been arrested, tortured, and murdered, and then their bodies were declared unidentified and secretly cremated. He was murdered in police custody. His body was not given to his family.
The police never released the body of former Jathedar of the Akal Takht Sardar Gurdev Singh Kaunke after SSP Swaran Singh Ghotna murdered him. Ghotna has never been brought to trial for Jathedar Kaunke's murder. No one has been brought to justice for the kidnapping and murder of Jaswant Singh Khalra.
According to a report by the Movement Against State Repression (MASR), 52,268 Sikhs are being held as political prisoners in India without charge or trial. Some have been in illegal custody since 1984! Tens of thousands of other minorities are also being held as political prisoners, according to Amnesty International. We demand the immediate release of all these political prisoners.
History shows that multinational states such as India are doomed to failure. Countries like Austria-Hungary, India's longtime friend the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and others prove this point. India is not one country; it is a polyglot like those countries, thrown together for the convenience of the British colonialists. It is doomed to break up as they did.
``The flame of freedom burns brightly in the hearts of Sikhs,'' said Dr. Aulakh. ``As Professor Darshan Singh, a former Jathedar of the Akal Takht, said, `If a Sikh is not for Khalistan, he is not a Sikh','' Dr. Aulakh noted. ``Liberating Khalistan is the only way to let the Sikh Nation live in freedom and dignity.'
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