India Center Accepts Punjab CMs Plea On Black Lists Of NRI Sikhs, Deletes 142 Names

[kds1980]

Center accepts Punjab CMs plea on black lists of NRI Sikhs, deletes 142 names

Punjab Newsline Network
Thursday, 12 May 2011
By Deepti Dharmani

CHANDIGARH: Acting on the repeated pleas of the Punjab government, the Government of India has finally deleted the names of 142 persons out of total of 169 from the Black Lists of “Sikh NRIs”. Only 27 names now remain on the List. Punajb govt wants any discrepancy on names removed through mutual consultations between the state and the central officials.

The issue of Black Lists, which was one of the major political demands of the Shiromani Akali Dal and formed a part of its poll promises in February 2007, was also a key issue agitating the minds of the NRIs. The SAD and the Punjab government had been demanding that the lists should be regularly reviewed and the names on it should be made public and the unjust denial of access to common and innocent NRI Sikhs should stop. The Union government’s earlier refusal to do so had become a major source of harassment and exploitation of Sikhs many of whom were denied access to the country even though their names did not figure on the Black list.

Reacting to the center’s acceptance of the SAD demand, the Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, who also holds the Home portfolio, today demanded that all the details, including, the names of the remaining persons, should be put on the official website of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to eliminate any further exploitation of Sikhs in the matter. “There should be an automatic mechanism for periodic review of these lists. While those facing criminal charges should be brought before the law,there should be no harassment of the innocents,” said the Deputy CM.


The center’s decision comes at the end of several review meeting between the officials of the Punjab and the Union governments and the recommendations of the central and state security agencies. The center has informed the Punjab government that its action follows the “consultations it had with the state govt. officials and the security agencies, the Government of India.”.

The issue of the revision of Black Lists was raised by the Chief Minister Parkas Singh Badal at the All India Chief Ministers’ Conference on Internal Security in New Delhi on February 7 last year. The Honorable High Court Delhi had also asked the government to consider the matter expeditiously.

This issues was again brought up by Sukhbir Singh Badal representing Punjab at a meeting of All India Chief Ministers’ Conference on behalf of Mr. Badal (senior). The Chief Minister had also urged the Prime Minister and the Union MHA through separate demi-official letters in July last year. The issue figured during several meetings he and the Deputy Chief Minister had with the PM.

Consequent upon these meetings, the Union Government had sent a CD containing details of the persons on the Black List. After a thorough review, the Punjab government recommended that those booked for terrorist activities should face the law of the country and the names of all the rest who did not have any criminal cases against them should be removed from the list.

The Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal in a statement has thanked all right thinking persons and organizations in India and abroad for their help to the state government in getting this demand accepted by the center.

http://punjabnewsline.com/content/c...black-lists-nri-sikhs-deletes-142-names/31062

 

[Archived_Member16]

Review of Blacklist

Tribune analysis

Khalistan ideologues major beneficiaries

Prabhjot Singh
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, May 14

A review of the blacklist of Sikh separatists and militants by the Union Home Ministry last month has benefited dreaded organisation Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) and Khalistan ideologues the most.

Incidentally, the chiefs of all the four infamous Sikh militant bodies -- Wadhawa Singh Babbar alias Chacha (BKI), Paramjit Singh Panjwar (Khalistan Commando Force), Ranjit Singh alias Neeta of Khalistan Zindabad Force and Lakhbir Singh Rode and Satinder Pal Singh Gill (International Youth Federation) have made it off the list. Key Khalistan ideologues, including octogenarian Ganga Singh Dhillon of Nankana Sahib Foundation, Gurmeet Singh Aulakh and Gian Singh Sandhu, too, fall in this category.

Ganga Singh Dhillon was the guest of honour at the World Sikh Education conference held in Chandigarh in the early 1980s, the time when the struggle for Khalistan had just started.

After removal of their names from the blacklist, they are now legally permitted to visit India (subject to production of valid travel documents), though it will now be the responsibility of Indian missions abroad to process their applications in this connection, a source in the police department. Many of them have cases pending at police stations in Chandigarh, Punjab, Haryana and Delhi.

Interestingly, their present residences are in some of those countries with which India has extradition treaties signed since the late 1990s. Not many requests for extraditing them were pending with the countries of their present abode.
Sources in the police and intelligence agencies were non-committal on the action they would initiate in case they, after clearance of their names from the blacklist, decided to visit India.

Four of them, including Paramjit Singh Panjwar and Wadhawa Singh Babbar, are known to have made Pakistan their new home. But changing global security scenario after the killing of Osama bin Laden may have given them the feeling of insecurity and uncertain future.

Intriguingly, while names of those in Pakistan have been cleared from the blacklist, yet they figure prominently in the list of 50 sent by the Government of India to Pakistan for handover.

Justice John C Major, who headed the Commission of Inquiry in the Kanishka blast case and was recently in Chandigarh, said that in Surrey, British Columbia, Sikh fundamentalists were more active than those in India. And a fairly large number of those whose names had been cleared were settled in and around Surrey.

Some of the Khalistan ideologues have made the US their home while a few BKI activists have chosen Germany and other European nations, including England.
Sources reveal that the Union Home Ministry had been under constant pressure from various Sikh bodies, both from India and overseas, to scrap the list. They had been advocating that those on the list be given the chance for a fair trial. They quote cases of Dr Sohan Singh and Dr Jagjit Singh Chohan, both Khalistan ideologues, and also of Wassan Singh Zaffarwal, who was once one of most dreaded militants. Once they were back in the mainstream, they faced the cases slapped against them and renounced militancy.

Prominent among those cleared:

* Lakhbir Singh Rode, Satinder Pal Singh Gill (International Sikh Youth Federation)
* Paramjit Singh Panjwar (Khalistan Commando Force)
* Jaswinder Parmar, Narinder Singh Parmar, Rajinder Kaur Parmar, Surinder Kaur Parmar (from the family of Talwinder Singh Parmar of BKI)
* Mehal Singh Babbar, Wadhawa Singh Chacha, Jagtar Singh, Daya Singh, Harinder Singh Babbar, Thekedar Jaswant Singh (Babbar Khalsa International)
* Ranjit Singh Neeta (Khalistan Zindabad Force)
* Ripudaman Singh Malik, Inderjit Singh Reyat (stood trial in Kanishka blast case)
The legal angle

Sources in the police and intelligence agencies non-committal on the action they would initiate in case those cleared off the blacklist decide to visit India. Also, while names of those in Pakistan have been cleared from the blacklist, yet they figure prominently in the list of 50 sent by the Government of India to Pakistan for handover

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20110515/punjab.htm#1

 

[spnadmin]

Would some kind forum member explain what this means to me?

The legal angle

Sources in the police and intelligence agencies non-committal on the action they would initiate in case those cleared off the blacklist decide to visit India.

I am not being sarcastic. It seems to me that from the start of news coverage on this issue, of many months now, the ambiguity regarding legal reaction was never cleared up. If I were in that number for sure I would not visit India. I might never get out...forgive me but I don't think I would be staying in a serene and bucolic place where I would want to stay forever, or a 5 star hotel. And my comments are not farfetched, because I know at least 6 people who fall into this category and one of them had his passport taken the last time he was in India and it was never returned to him.