Sukhbir Badal urges centre to release Sikh prisoners

Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal Thursday sought immediate intervention of union Home Minister Rajnath Singh for the release, on compassionate grounds, of over 100 Sikh political prisoners in various jails who have completed their sentences.

Badal said this in reference to the indefinite fast being observed by Kurukshetra resident Gurbaksh Singh Khalsa at Ambala in Haryana for release of Sikh prisoners.

He said he is writing to the union home minister in this regard, and urged the union government that the issue should be considered on compassionate grounds. He said that these prisoners should be freed under rehabilitation policy introduced in some other states to bring them back into mainstream.

The Sikh prisoners are mostly those who had opposed the state during days of terrorism in Punjab (1982-1992), especially after the Operation Bluestar by the Army at the Golden Temple complex, which houses the holiest of Sikh shrines, in Amritsar in June 1984.