France NRI Iqbal Singh Bhatti denies involvement in AAP’s pro-Khalistan funding

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 24

Days after his name cropped up as a “reference” in the case of Khalistani funding for AAP, France-based NRI Iqbal Singh Bhatti today landed at the office of Delhi Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena to deny he had played any such role.

Iqbal Singh Bhatti was honoured by India for social service

• NRI Iqbal Singh Bhatti’s organisation either sends bodies of Indians killed in France back home or performs last rites there itself
• Over the past 20 years, his outfit Aurore Dawn handled 371 bodies, of which 122 were cremated in France
• Bhatti has received seven gold medals, one award from the Indian Government and 11 certificates of honour, including one during Covid from the Indian Embassy

Bhatti, who has been into social service for decades in his adopted country, maintained he was “not connected in any manner to the AAP funding episode”. He runs Aurore Dawn, an outfit that helps cremate Indians who die in France. On this visit to India too, he is carrying eight urns containing the ashes of Indians cremated in France. “I have nothing to do with the funding. The complaint against me is wrong,” he told The Tribune.

The NRI even produced documents to show he was a social worker and had each time met Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he visited France. He claimed a few weeks ago he, in collaboration with the Overseas Friends of BJP, even organised a car rally in favour of PM Modi in Paris.

On May 5, the Principal Secretary to the L-G had sent a letter to the Union Home Secretary, which referred to another January 2014 letter written by AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal to Bhatti on a decision of the Delhi Government. Bhatti had then been fasting at Jantar Mantar while demanding an SIT probe into the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and release Sikhs, including Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar, languishing in jails for decades. Kejriwal’s letter to Bhatti (The Tribune has a copy) mentioned, “The AAP government has already recommended to the President the release of Bhullar and would be working on other issues, including the formation of an SIT, sympathetically and in a time-bound manner.”

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#France #VK Saxena