Swaraj promises to take up blacklisted Sikh youths’ issue with Home Ministry

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 21

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has voiced concern over the central government’s delay in having Sikh youngsters’ names removed from its blacklist for subversive activities. 

External Affairs Ministry Sushma Swaraj, who met Singh on Friday in the national capital, is believed to have promised to take it up with the Home Ministry. The blacklisted people are barred from entering India.

She has also agreed to have a passport office opened at Nawanshahr to provide easy access to non-resident Indians and their families in Doaba.

The Nawanshahr passport office will be in addition to the recently sanctioned passport office in Patiala, a spokesperson of the Punjab government disclosed after the meeting. The Patiala office will be opened soon.

The chief minister also discussed racist attacks on Punjabis and Sikhs settled abroad, most recent of which is an attack on a cab driver in New York.

Singh visited Swaraj after the latter recently underwent a kidney transplant.

A Sikh cab was assaulted by some drunken people in New York in what police suspect is a hate crime.