Kashmiris peace-loving people, they need development: Bhagat Singh’s nephew

Syed Ali Ahmed
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, March 23

“Kashmiris are peace-loving people. They need development,” said Major General Sheonan Singh (retd), nephew of Shaheed Bhagat Singh. 

“I had been posted for 12 years in the Kashmir Valley to fight militancy. We have not developed the Kashmir Valley for the people of Kashmir. We have constructed roads so that army could fight and suppress the Kashmiris,” said Sheonan Singh, who was chief guest at a function to commemorate the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev, organised by the Delhi Archives.

Asked about the incidents of stone-pelting in the Valley, he said that stone pelters were there in Delhi also. “We should have eyes to see them.”

The function was organised on completion of one year of Bhagat Singh Archives and Resource Centre. 

On the occasion, Sheonan and his cousin Abhay Singh Sandhu released a brochure of Delhi Archives that housed Bhagat Singh Archives and Resource Centre. The centre has 300 books on Bhagat Singh meant for research scholars besides others.

He said to understand Bhagat Singh people should read and think and then have their own idea. “This will be true tribute to Bhagat Singh, Shaheed-e-Azam, who was hanged to death on March 23, 1931.” 

“We should not have blind faith in democracy. Democracy in America is 200 years old but Trump has been elected as President there. Capitalists are everywhere, including America, India, China and Russia. But in India, capitalists control the government and in China, government controls capitalists,” he said.

Abhay Singh, another nephew of Bhagat Singh, said the country had old system of governance and laws. “There is a need to change that system and for that youngsters should come forward. The sections of Indian Penal Code and CrPC are the same used by the British government to rule India. Now the young people should come forward to change them.”