DESPARDES News Monitor — The Sikh Community of Connecticut, along with Norwich and state officials, unveiled a permanent memorial Saturday to the victims of the 1984 massacre of Sikh worshippers at the Amritsar, Punjab Golden Temple.
June 1st is the 35th anniversary of the attack by the Indian Army on the Sikhs’ holiest place of worship, “Harminder Sahib,” the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab. The attack killed more than 10,000 worshippers.
Swaranjit Singh Khalsa of Norwich, president of Sikh Sewak Society International USA, said in a statement: “Our motive is to bring in light the right narrative which has been suppressed for many, many years and also to educate fellow Americans on what happened to Sikhs in 1984 and why Sikhs decided to choose America as their home.”
Khalsa said the Sikh Genocide Memorial will help make the Sikh community feel safer living here.
Meanwhile, in Canada, Sikh groups are also running a campaign urging the Trudeau government to declare Sikh Genocide Remembrance Day for the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
In the year 2017, a private member bill recognizing the 1984 anti-Sikh riots as genocide was passed by the Canadian legislature.
Along with a rally that was organized in Ottawa, a memorandum was also sent to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau requesting him to declare the first Saturday of June every year as the Sikh Genocide Remembrance Day. As part of the campaign, an email campaign was planned to target the Members of Parliament in the House of Commons.
In UK, a significant crowd belong to the Sikh community gathered in London and held a memorial for the day.
Sikhs advocacy groups for east Punjab as independent Khalistan also held demonstrations on the day.
A documentary film titled “Punjab Disappeared is being screened at various places in England during the month of June to highlight enforced disappearances, extra judicial killings and mass secret cremations that took place in (east) Punjab.
