SGPC offers legal aid to Jodhpur ‘detainees’

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, June 18

The SGPC has offered free legal aid to Sikhs, who were illegally detained in Jodhpur jail after Operation Bluestar, to fight their case in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, if the Centre challenges the compensation awarded to them by a local court.

SGPC president Gobind Singh Longowal has also offered jobs to the needy. The Sikh body has also started a move to trace the “remaining detainees”.

The record says there were 365 prisoners confined in Jodhpur jail till 1989-90. More than 200 Sikhs had filed the case in 1991. With the passage of time, some of them died and others gave up. Eventually, only 40 came forward to make an appeal in 2011 and in May 2017, the Amritsar court awarded a compensation of Rs 4 lakh each. The state government had agreed to pay the compensation, but the Centre had filed a writ petition in the High Court.

A 10-member committee of Jodhpur “detainees” met Longowal and SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal on Monday. Longowal said: “We will meet Home Minister Rajnath Singh shortly and urge him to withdraw the petition filed by the CBI on behalf of Centre.”