Centre releases compensation for Jodhpur detainees, Harsimrat Badal thanks PM Modi
Centre releases compensation for Jodhpur detainees, Harsimrat Badal thanks PM Modi The Union Cabinet Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal today thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh for the decision of the Union government to sanction Rs 2.16 crore to compensate 40 Sikhs. The compensation has been provided to the 40 Sikhs who had been illegally picked up from Sri Harmandar Sahib after the then Prime Minister Mrs Indira Gandhi had ordered the brutal and blunderous army assault on the holiest shrine of the Sikhs in June 1984. In a statement here, Harsimrat Badal said that the centre’s decision to release the compensation amount would help in healing heal the wounds inflicted on the innocent Sikhs by the Congress led governments. “Although I whole whole-heartedly welcome the dicision on compensation and believe that it should be paid immediately, I also believe that for the Sikh community, it is not only about money. It is also about restoring their honour and upholding the innocence of the Sikhs and indicting the Congress government led by Mrs Indira Gandhi for the crime committed against the Sikhs and the humanity at large in 1984,” said the Union Minister. The center’s decision comes in the wake of the strong opposition put up by the Shiromani Akali Dal to the action of the official advocates who had habitually sought to challenge the court’s verdict in favour of the innocent detainees. The SAD high command, led by the Akali patriarch Parkash Singh Badal had strongly urged the Union Government to order the payment of compensation to the innocent Sikhs when the BJP presdent Shri Amit Shah when he the latter met them in Chandigarh last month. Ms Harsimrat Kaur Badal had also been persistently urging the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister Shi Raj Nath Singh in this regard. Ms Badal said that the court’s verdict establishing the innocence of Jodhpur detainees was also a forceful indictment of the excesses committed against the Sikhs by successive Congress governments, especially the one led by the late Mrs Indira Gandhi. These hapless detainees had been incarcerated during the Congress regime which also denied them compensation after it had been found that the government’s act was not only a violation of the law and the Constitution but was also vengeful in the extreme against the Sikh community. It may be recalled that the the Punjab government under Sardar Parkash Singh Badal had accepted and hailed the court order and cleared the compensation for the detainees. -PTC News
