United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York along with the Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s National Security Division have filed murder-for-hire charges against Indian national Nikhil Gupta for participating in a foiled plot to assassinate a US citizen on US soil for his activism to establish an independent Sikh nation state Khalistan.
The intended target of the assassination plot was Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a New York based lawyer and General Counsel for the advocacy group Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) which is organizing global voting for Khalistan Referendum on the question “Should Indian Governed Punjab Be An Independent Country?”.
Criminal charges filed against 52 years old Indian national Nikhil Gupta who acted in concert with and on behest of high ranking Indian Government officials, are indeed a charge sheet against Prime Minister of India Nardendara Modi who has a track record of violently suppressing the dissent and criticism.
While Modi regime has been know to crush the freedom of speech at home, Nijjar’s assassination in Canada and attempt at Pannun’s life in USA are the first high profile cases in which Modi regime is caught red handed using its violent tactics against its political opponents in western countries, which should be an alarm for the world community.
Attempt on Pannun’s life reveals just the tip of what India has been doing to Sikhs. Since 1947, India has killed tens of thousands of Sikhs because they ask for their rights. On June 18, this year Hardeep Singh Nijjar (Khalistan Referendum supporter) was assassinated in the parking lot Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara by the agents of the Indian government, which the government officials, Indian news media, and people of India have been celebrating to date.
There are ongoing open threats of assassination against Mr. Pannun and several other Sikh activists from Indian officials soldely because they are leading the Khalistan Referendum campaign.
India has been criminalizing the peaceful Khalistan Referendum by declaring SFJ a banned organization, and its activists as terrorists trying to incite violence.
However, the facts lead to the conclusion that the peaceful Khalistan Referendum campaign is to stop the violence against Sikhs ongoing since 1947 not only in Punjab and India but also throughout the world since 1970.
Despite its best efforts, India has neither been able to stop, nor tolerate the success of the unofficial Khalistan Referendum. More than one million two hundred thousand Sikhs who have voted in this referendum in six countries (UK, Switzerland, Austria, Australia, Itay, and Canada) are the voice of millions of Sikhs who want freedom from India but are not allowed to speak. Realizing its failure to stop the Khalistan Referendum India has escalated the extrajudicial killing of diaspora Sikhs.
In Punjab, those who ask for their rights are detained, arrested, tortured, and arbitrarily imprisoned under the black draconian laws of the British era like UAPA. Tens of thousands have been extrajudicially killed. There has been ongoing genocide and econocide of Sikhs in Punjab since 1947.
Tens of thousands of Muslims and thousands of Christians have been killed in India by Hindu mobs mostly belonging to Hindutva forces with the connivance of politicians, religious leaders, and the police. Almost always perpetrators go unpunished, and the victims face charges.
Activists like Greta Thunberg, and Meena Harris who supported protesting farmers, and reporters like TIME’s Ashta Rajvanshi who interviewed Pannun face death threats for doing their job. For the people of Punjab, the Khalistan Referendum is the voice of the voiceless to get them from under therepressive Indian regime. We want the world community to support the liberation of Punjab fromIndian occupation by an official Khalistan Referendum.
The author is an American Sikh and licensed Physician practicing in the State of Pennsylvania for more than three decades. He is President of Council of Khalistan. one of the oldest Pro Khalistan Organization in the United States. He can be reached at [email protected]