CHANDIGARH, DECEMBER 2: Member Parliament from Bathinda Mrs. Harsimrat Kaur Badal today raised doubts over Sonia Gandhi’s failure to stop repeated incidents of harassment of Sikhs in her ‘Motherland’ Italy, when she was Chairperson of United Progressive Alliance (UPA) the party ruling the union government.
In a statement issued here today, Mrs. Badal said that whether it was failure or deliberate design on the part of Congress party to demean the Sikh Community that was on their target since 1984. She said that on one hand Congress party claims to be votary of Sikhs and on other hand despite assurances by Union Exteranl Affairs Ministry and Prime Minister, the Sikhs were being targeted in Italy. She wondered that why union government was failing to discharge its basic duty to safeguard the dignity of Sikhs, traveling abroad. She said that if celebrities like Golfer Jeev Milkha Singh’s Coach Mr. Amritinder Singh and Ravijodh Singh Dhupia, Commander Jet Airways could be publicly ridiculed in the presence of thousands of commuters, one can well understand the fate of scores of ordinary Sikhs facing daily harassment in Italy.
Mrs. Badal also questioned the failure of Mrs. Praneet Kaur, Minister of State for External Affairs and PPCC President Captain Amrinder Singh for projecting the case of harassment of Sikhs at diplomatic level and also at party level.
Mrs. Badal has also sent a communiqué to Speaker of Lok Sabha Meira Kumar to convey the concern of Sikh community to Italian parliamentary delegation visiting Lok Sabha today so that they can take up this matter with their government for stopping the victimization of Sikhs.
In another communiqué to the Ambassador of Italy, Mrs. Badal reminded him the memorandum submitted by Shiromani Akali Dal regarding the humiliation meted out to S. Amritinder Singh and his assurance that such incidents would not be reoccurred. She wrote that after this repetition of incident at the same venue, she was conveying the hurt sentiments of entire Sikh community and sought his immediate intervention to ensure that such unwarranted incidents do not reoccur and officials at all airports in Italy be sensitized about the Turban.
