Harsimrat meets Rajnath, seeks relief for Op Bluestar detainees

Tribune reporters

Amritsar/new delhi, June 19

Hope rekindled for the Jodhpur jail detainees following the SAD’s move to approach Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who assured the party that the affected persons would get their due.

On Tuesday, SAD spokesperson Virsa Singh Valtoha said a SAD delegation comprising Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, parliamentarians Balwinder Singh Bhoondarh and Naresh Kumar Gujral, DSGMC president Manjit Singh GK and SGPC’s executive member advocate Bhagwant Singh Sialka took up various Sikh issues with the Home Minister and got a positive response.

Valtoha, who himself was among the 325 Sikhs who were arrested from the Golden Temple complex during Operation Bluestar and kept under illegal detention, said, “The Home Minister has assured us to revoke the appeal filed by the CBI on behalf of the Central Government in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, challenging the Amritsar court’s verdict to compensate the Jodhpur detainees. Since, it will be a legal process, I hope it will be done before July 2,” he said. In May 2017, the Amritsar court had directed both the Central and the state governments to shell out Rs 4 lakh as compensation to the detainees, along with interest at the rate of 6 per cent per annum from the date of filing the suit. The order for compensation covered both the periods — illegal detention and alleged delay in trial.

Another affected person, advocate Jasbir Singh Ghuman, who fought and won the legal battle for compensation in the Amritsar court, hoped that the SAD must have been successful in persuading the Home Minister to withdraw the writ. “Our fight for the detainees and their families will continue. It was our 27-year-long legal battle following which the local court had ordered both governments to grant us a compensation which was questioned by the Centre,” he said.

Ghuman said: “ If the Centre fails to fulfil its assurance, we stand by our revolt and will oppose BJP candidates in the 2019 elections,” he said.