My fight is for human rights: Khalra

Aparna Banerji 

Tribune News Service 

Jalandhar, April 15 

“Lok chahunde hun ke es seat nu ek tarike naal lareya jaave. Eh manukkhi adhikaran di larai hai. Ehde karke lok ohnan te dabaa bana rahe si (people want that this seat be contested in a planned way. This is a fight for human rights. Hence people were also pressurising them),” said Bibi Paramjit Kaur Khalra, a day after the SAD (Taksali) withdrew the candidature of its Khadoor Sahib nominee, former Army Chief Gen JJ Singh, in her favour. 

In her first visit to Kapurthala as a part of her campaign, Khalra was unusually calm as her speech was sans any of the characteristic potshots which candidates take against their opponents. While the Akali Dal has pitched Bibi Jagir Kaur against her, Khalra’s entire focus is on her husband’s sacrifice and her 24-year-old fight for justice while addressing villagers.    

Reacting to the Taksalis withdrawing their candidate, she says: “The withdrawal is a positive development. These elections should be fought for the cause of human rights. The Taksalis had projected their own candidate, but public pressure has brought us together in this fight.”

Accompanied by Punjabi Ekta Party leader Sukhpal Singh Khaira, she spoke to PEP workers and local supporters at the Adnawali village, then headed for a rally at Sukhpal Khaira’s ancestral village Khera Dona, where after a satirical skit on the Centre by a Malwa-based theatre troupe, she began her speech. Dressed in a grey suit, donning an orange siropa she was honoured with, two village kids capture the moment as she addresses a gathering seated in a pink tent pitched in a courtyard of an NRI’s house.

She said: “I shall start by speaking to you about Sardar Jaswant Singh Khalra. He is the man who took up the cause of those for whom no one cared about. Even a corpse has a right, the right to burial. But our children didn’t even get a decent burial. My husband’s life was sacrificed to ensure justice for this cause and it hasn’t come yet.” 

Speaking to The Tribune she says: “Asin sara kujh bardasht kar lainne aan. Corruption vi. Par jadon guru sahib di beadbi hundi hai odon maaf nahi karde (Sikhs are very tolerant. We tolerate everything, even corrupt politicians. But not the insult to the Guru). 

“One of the prime motives why I agreed to contest is that Punjab’s rights won’t be safeguarded unless a political system primarily representing the Sikhs comes to the state. We need change. My ultimate aim is to take the issue to Parliament and make them concede to the Sikh genocide of 1984.Central parties have only duped the state. We have waited for the Congress and Akali Dal. The Congress hasn’t issued a word of apology for 1984. The Akali Dal stood for the panth and answered the people with desecration.”

‘Govt must apologise for 1984’ 

The government seeks an apology from Britain for Jallianwala Bagh. But during Operation Bluestar, tanks were taken within 200 feet of Akal Takht and no one even apologised. “We demand the government make a formal apology for the attack on the holy place of Sikhs. Not even an FIR was filed for the attack and the damage to Akal Takht or the Golden Temple premises. There was no account of bodies either,” Bibi Paramjit Kaur Khalra said.