The delay in the release of Sikh prisoners, who are lodged in jails despite having served their terms, is an emotional issue for a section of state’s people. While Congress and SAD support their release, the AAP government is non-committal on the issue. A report by Rajendra Khatry

The issue of the release of `Bandi Singhs, is rocking Punjab of late. A section of activists and political parties has stepped up pressure on the Bhagwant Mann-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government to demand the release of Sikh prisoners who have been languishing in prison for several years now. They were convicted of involvement in militancy in Punjab years ago.

The release of ‘Bandi Singhs’ in jails despite having served their terms, is a very emotional issue for a section of people in Punjab. The Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal have been supporting their release, but the ruling AAP government in the state is non-committal yet. 

Bandi Singhs are Sikhs of Punjab who were arrested for their alleged involvement in militant activities. They were charged under law and found guilty of various crimes. They were meted out sentences which ranged from death to different terms of imprisonment. 

Militancy led to a lot of suffering for the people of Punjab.The era marked the concept of state terrorism in its most notorious form. According to sources, the Bandi Sikhs were not actually criminals. Many of them were said to be some misguided youth who took up arms to further their political and religious beliefs.

Unfortunately, their means and actions were not correct and proper. Some also resorted to violence.They deserved punishment no doubt, but they have been in various prisons for a long time now and have not yet been released.

A section of people very strongly feels that once the period of militancy waned in Punjab and gradually ended, these Bandi Singhs should have been given clemency. It could have been based on good behaviour, assurance to live in accordance with constitutional norms and a commitment to abjure violence of any kind. As they were not regular criminals, they could have been pardoned also.

According to reports, most of the prisoners continue to remain in jails even after completing their prison terms. Most of them are old now and can hardly pose any threat to society. Many actually need help and emotional support from their respective families which otherwise they are denied now.

It is true that a movement for release of the Bandi Singhs has been going on for a long time now. Many political parties and Sikh Panthic (religious) organisations have raised their demand from time to time. Unfortunately such moves are often to gain political mileage.

One can ask if there have been real intentions and moves on the part of the political parties, social groups or sections of people to work for their release. The half-hearted approach therefore has not served the purpose and in turn the government too has not paid much attention in the past. 

According to Jaspal Singh Manjhpur, a lawyer and champion for the cause of Sikh prisoners, there are around 21 Sikh prisoners, serving life sentences in the jails. The Qaumi Insaaf Morcha is seeking the release of nine “Bandi Singhs”.

Recently, several armed members of a Sikh organisation, including Nihangs on horseback, under the banner of ‘Qaumi Insaaf Morcha’ injured around 40 Chandigarh policemen as they clashed with the police at the Chandigarh-Mohali border in Punjab while trying to force their way through the barricades. This raised serious questions of law and order in Punjab. 

The ‘Qaumi Insaaf Morcha’ members have been protesting for the release of `Bandi Singhs’ or Sikh prisoners who they claim are lodged in different prisons across the country although they have already completed their sentences.

The videos of the incident clearly showed how the protesters, which included Nihangs, attacked Chandigarh police with swords and sticks. The protestors fought with the Chandigarh police and beat them up even as they tried to force their way through the barricades. They also damaged several police and private vehicles.

The Chandigarh police had put up barricades near the Chandigarh-Mohali border to prevent the protesters who have been protesting for more than a month. The protesters tried several times to move towards Punjab Chief MInister Bhagwant Mann’s residence but were stopped at the Chandigarh-Punjab border. But violent clashes made the intention of the protesters very clear.

Now bulletproof tractors have been deployed by Punjab Police at the border of Chandigarh where 31 members of the “Qaumi Inssaf Morcha” had performed `Jaap’ (religious rituals), in Chandigarh on February 13 last.

Incidentally, among the prominent Sikhs whose release are being demanded by the Bandi Singhs are Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, Balwant Singh Rajaona, Lakhwinder Singh, Gurmeet Singh, Shamsher Singh, Gurdeep Singh Khera, Jagtar Singh Hawara, Paramjit Singh Behora and Jagtar Singh Tara besides others.

 are in Burail jail, Chandigarh, Lal Singh, Waryam Singh and many others. 

Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar was held guilty by a Delhi court and was  jailed in Tihar.  He is now said to be in Nabha jail. Gurmeet Singh, Lakhwinder Singh, Shamsher Singh were tried by the court of the UT Chandigarh. They were convicted. They are now serving a jail term in Burail Jail, Chandigarh. 

Another prisoner, Balwant Singh Rajaona was held guilty for the assassination of Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh in 1995. Earlier he was scheduled to be hanged on March 31, 2012. But his execution was stayed on 28 March, 2012, by the then UPA government because of a mercy petition to the President filed by the SGPC.

Yet another prisoner, Gurdeep Singh Khera was held guilty by a court in Karnataka. Gurdeep was lodged in a jail in the state earlier. He is reported to be in Amritsar jail now. 

Similarly,Jagtar Singh Hawara was also found guilty of being a conspirator in the assassination of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh. He is presently serving a jail term in Tihar jail, Delhi. Hawara is also a high-level member of Babbar Khalsa and was declared Jathedar of the Akal Takht by the rival SAD (Amritsar) group. However, the declaration was contested by the SGPC.

Through legal process and due to the notification of the Union Government, the six Bandi Singhs released from 2019 to date are Nand Singh, Subeg Singh, Balbir Singh, Harjinder Singh, Lal Singh. Kulvir Singh is currently lodged in Central Jail, Ferozepur (Punjab) and has no case pending against him.

Many of the prisoners were convicted under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA) that was first enacted in 1985 to tackle terrorism in Punjab. The act was removed in 1995 due to increasing public opposition. 

From time to time, many organisations have demanded release of Bandi Singhs. It is said their requests went unheard by the government because they could not provide correct details of the prisoners. Due to this the government’s response was also not as expected. 

Earlier, the Supreme Court stayed the remission (or partial relief) by state governments in the case of convicts sentenced to life terms. However, according to the legal experts there are two options still available to the Punjab government in case it wants to extend some relief to prisoners. These options are pardon or suspension of punishment (by way of parole or furlough).

In releasing one of the close aides of radical leader Amritpal Singh in a kidnapping case, a day after a massive attack on a police station in Amritsar by his supporters, the AAP government in Punjab seems to have caved in to the pressure of radical elements. A report by Rajesh Moudgil

Just about a fortnight ago, the Punjab police had nabbed one Lovepreet Toofan, accused in kidnapping and assault case and an aide of radical preacher Amritpal Singh, little aware of its ramifications.

On February 23, virtually hundreds of supporters of radical leader and a Khalistan sympathiser Amritpal, attacked Ajnala police station and injured several police personnel, demanding Toofan’s release, till night on that day. Led by their leader Amritpal, the supporters stormed into Ajnala police station, carrying swords, traditional weapons and even guns, breaking through heavy police deployment and barricading, demanding Toofan’s release, who they held was falsely implicated.

Next day – February 24 – Lovepreet Toofan walked out of jail on the basis of an application filed by Amritsar police for his release in which the police said the lawyer of the accused had given evidence in the court that the accused was not present at the spot in the alleged case of kidnapping.

Amritpal, Toofan and several others were booked by police on February 16, 2023, in a case in which he had allegedly kidnapped one Barinder Singh from Ajnala, taken him to an unknown place and brutally beaten him.

Dubai-returned radical preacher, Amritpal, 29, was made the head of the Sikh organisation “Waris Punjab De’’, which was set up and funded by Punjabi singer Deep Sidhu, who died in a road accident in February last year. Amritpal was also in news recently for his alleged threat that Union Home minister Amit Shah would meet the same fate as that of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Reminiscent of dark days

The incident has put the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in poor light even as it has come under heavy fire from opposition with the president of the principal opposition party Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring condemning it.

While warning the AAP government against letting such incidents go without law taking its own course, Warring said, people of Punjab had not elected the AAP government to push Punjab back to the dark days of violence. “What we are seeing today is reminiscent of the past which every Punjabi is scared of”, he said, while asking the Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to take firm action.

Warring further warned that Punjab could not afford another era of darkness and violence which, he held, people like Amritpal were trying to thrust on the state. Lashing out at the AAP government for succumbing to the pressure of the protesters and deciding to withdraw the cases of violence, he warned chief minister Bhagwant Mann that the latter was setting a dangerous precedent and there would be no end to it. He asked him to let the law take its own course and not surrender to lawlessness.

Condemning Amritpal for carrying holy Bir of Guru Granth Sahib to the police station, Warring said, it showed only his (Amritpal Singh) cowardice.

Another opposition party, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), president Sukhbir Singh Badal also came down heavily on the incident stating “the sacrilege committed by lawless elements at Ajnala trying to use the Holy Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji as a shield for their selfish motives and by taking the sacred scripture to a police station’’. He lashed out at both the BJP government at the Centre and the AAP government in Punjab for vitiating the atmosphere and ruining the hard earned atmosphere of peace and communal harmony in the state.

The BJP also blasted the AAP government with its senior leader Capt Amarinder Singh stating the Ajnala incident not only indicated a complete collapse of the law and order situation in Punjab but was more serious than that. The state BJP vice president Subhash Sharma said that the incident was an open challenge to the state government and Punjab police.

However, the AAP Cabinet minister Kuldeep Dhaliwal held that police personnel were attacked by the protesters by using holy Guru Granth Sahib as a shield and that the police acted with restraint. Accusing opposition of running slanderous campaigns to tarnish AAP government image, cabinet minister Kuldeep Dhaliwal held that the law and order situation was intact in Punjab.

Guv-Mann ties sour further

Meanwhile, another worrying scenario in Punjab is that instead of any thaw, the relationship between the governor Banwarilal Purohit and the chief minister Bhagwant Mann continues to sour.

Sample this: In response to a governor’s letter expressing his displeasure over not replying to his queries, Mann said in a Tweet (in Punjabi) that he had received his letter through media ….. all the subjects mentioned in the letter were all state subjects. He said that he and his government were accountable to three crore Punjabis according to the Constitution and not to any Governor appointed by the Central Government. Mann went on to add that this may be seen as his reply.

Last week, Purohit held that he would allow the budget session to take place only after receiving legal advice on the chief minister’s “extremely derogatory and patently unconstitutional tweets’’ in response to a February 13 letter from Raj Bhavan. The Punjab Cabinet had decided to hold the session on March 3 and had thus requested the Governor to summon the House.

The governor had, in a letter to Mann on February 13, raised questions about the selection of school principals for a training trip to Singapore, saying he had received complaints of “malpractices and illegalities” in this regard. He had also questioned the appointment of Guninderjit Jawandha as the Punjab Information and Communication Technology chairman pointing out that his name figured in a kidnapping and property grabbing case.

The governor also looked askance at the promotion and posting of IPS officer Kuldeep Singh Chahal as the Jalandhar police commissioner and the Naval Aggarwal, a non-official, attending the meetings of senior officers where sensitive and confidential matters of security of the country were discussed. Purohit had also raised questions over the non-disbursal of scholarships to 2 lakh SC students.

 The governor told the chief minister that the people of Punjab had elected him (Mann) to run the administration as per constitution and not according to his “whims and fancies’’.

 However, Mann in his written reply, said: “You have asked me on what basis the principals selected for training in Singapore. The People of Punjab want to ask, on what basis are the governors in different states selected by the central government in the absence of any specific qualification in the Indian Constitution?” he wrote.

 Meanwhile, the AAP government is also said to be upset with the governor over the latter’s interactions with the media about the complaints he had received about the rampant availability of drugs in the state and the criminals indulging in grave crimes from inside jails.

Vastly different values are pulling a young and aspirational India in two different directions. Till we are able to find a common meeting ground, there will be a lot more Nikkies, Shraddhas and Amarjyotis

“The course of true love never did run smooth.” These lines from the ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ by William Shakespeare are the universal truth. But when the world-famous bard was writing about misunderstandings between lovers, little did he imagine that a few centuries down the line, the path of true love would be slick with blood, gore and mind-numbing cruelty!

Dishearteningly, every other day one hears gruesome tales of love gone wrong and betrayal of the worst kind.

Take the case of Nikki Yadav for instance. Her husband Sahil Gehlot, is accused of killing her, stuffing her body into a fridge, and then marrying another woman the same day! What lack of respect for life, love, and human relationships? How can you kill someone you once loved and then callously go and marry someone else the same day? Where do you get the chutzpah to do that from?

And what was Nikki’s crime? She had married Sahil for love and was resisting his attempts to leave her and marry someone else. In her desperation, she had threatened to post the marriage certificate of the Arya Samaj temple where they got married, on social media and to show it to the family of the prospective bride. So, Sahil decided to eliminate her. No fear of the law. No remorse. And in the process, he ruined another woman’s life too. I wonder what the new bride is going through right now.

We also have the case of Vandana Kalita, a woman from Assam who killed her husband Amarjyoti Dey and mother-in-law Shankari Dey, chopped up their bodies and kept them inside a fridge in Assam’s Noonmati, a neighbourhood in Guwahati before throwing the body parts some 150 km away in Meghalaya’s Cherrapunji area. Kalita’s relationship with her husband was strained as she was having an extramarital affair. So, she chose to end her marriage this way.

In both these cases, the people were married and had obviously fallen out of love with their spouses. They murdered their spouses just because they wanted the relationship to end. A lot of people seem to have forgotten what American author Jodi Picoult has so simply put, “You don’t love someone because they’re perfect, you love in spite of the fact that they’re not.”

Nobody is perfect. You aren’t either. So work on the relationship, talk to each other, and opt for counseling. Make it work. But in today’s fast-paced world, people are increasingly becoming commitment-phobic. And even if they do make a commitment they tire of it easily. Worse, their tolerance threshold is low and they seem to fall in and out of love very quickly.

So, the big question is, are we turning into a society of selfish, self-centred individuals who are little princes and princesses in our own minds? Has Gen X brought up people who have difficulties in navigating life’s vagaries and facing the curve balls that invariably come our way? 

One question that always comes to mind when I read about people in an unhappy or failed marriage killing their spouse is: Why kill? Why can’t you simply seek a divorce if you can’t make it work?

I think the answer lies in the fact that we are living in times of “instant gratification.” We are so used to instant coffee, instant tea, instant noodles, and instant food being delivered online, instant shopping where there is instant gratification! We can book tickets online in an instant. We can order transportation online in a jiffy. We have high-speed Internet where your patience is not tested by having to wait for connectivity. Society seems to have forgotten the virtue of patience and waiting and working towards making something perfect. 

So, in these times of instant gratification, people, especially the young and restless, do not want to opt for the long, time-consuming, and hard path of trying to make things work in a relationship or even divorcing an estranged spouse. Because they know that in the Indian justice system getting a divorce is a time-consuming process. The courts, rightfully so, are in no hurry to tear a family asunder. They want to give an estranged couple as much time as possible to work toward reconciliation. So, the young and restless find it easier to get rid of the “problem” instantly by taking the law into their own hands. Whether they took the time to think of the consequences of their actions, only they can tell. But to them, it was an instant solution to their pressing “problem.”

Then there is the phenomenon of easy access to multiple partners and finding love on dating sites. Gone are the times when people took months to woo a person or even work up the courage to talk to them. Dating was hard and access to the opposite sex was limited. As people had to work hard to win that love, it was precious.

Don’t get me wrong. Dating sites are good because they bring so many people together who in real life would not have a chance or confidence of finding love. But the flip side of it is that their arrival has changed the dating scene. They have become an extension of the “instant” culture. You have access to thousands of like-minded people looking for love, so choices are fast and limitless. The value of that hard-won prize has gone down because of the easy and instant access to a host of other “fish in the sea”. The attitude is if it won’t work out with this one I can always get someone else. Just like Aftab Poonawala did, when he started dating other women and even brought them home while Shraddha Walker’s body parts were lying in the fridge. I bet that young lady who was with Aftab at that time must now be having nightmares about what happened and thanking her stars that she came out of the whole thing alive!

Then there is this other aspect which is the clash between the old and the new, the mismatch between traditional expectations and modern aspirations. The dichotomy between the two Indias we are living in. We are a country with a very young demographic. Hence, we are going through a major social and cultural transition where there is bound to be disjunction and polarity between culture and value. So, while at one level the younger generation’s mindset has changed extensively, their apron strings are still tied to those rooted in our traditions and culture.

So while there are lakhs of people who will genuinely be in love with the person they chose to live with or marry on their own without parental consent, the remainder of them are still struggling to cope with this new India. While on their own, they are happy to meet, date and live-in with a modern, financially independent person of their choice but when it comes to marriage they will either willingly marry a person who will gel well with the family or they will give in to parental pressure and marry a person of their parents’ choice. Some, like Sahil Gehlot, will think nothing of dumping or killing their live-in partner to please the parents.

Whether we admit it or not, these vastly different values and mindsets are pulling a young and aspirational India in two different directions. The result is that many are confused and some are falling victim to this upheaval which is pulling our social fabric asunder.

There will be a great many casualties in the fight between these two different Indias that we live in. Till we are able to find a common meeting ground, there will be a lot more Nikkies and Shraddhas and Amarjyotis. How long will it take us to strike a working balance or whether we will ever be able to do it, only time will tell! I just hope we can strike that balance sooner than later.  

As of today the population of the  jobless and pensionless elderly, as compared to the youngsters, has been on the rise in most countries of the world. They are only waiting to be declared persona non grata by their near and dear ones any moment, writes Amitabh Srivastva

Japan may be the first country where the elderly are being told to commit harakiri or become more open to euthanasia, as Yusuke Narita, a Yale professor suggested recently but it puts its finger on a raw nerve and may  have reverberations across the globe.

Going by the way better health care and early detection of diseases is increasing the average life span of the elderly, drastically  altering the demographic divide in most countries, the day is not far when a ‘Shoot at sight’ would be the order of the day.

As of today the population of the useless, jobless and pensionless elderly, as compared to the youngsters, has been on the rise in most countries of the world. They are only waiting to be declared persona non grata by their near and dear ones any moment.

Monaco with 36 % population above age 65 tops the list followed by Japan at 29% and Italy with 24% being the top three countries with a burgeoning population of the elderly.

World economists had been warning for almost a decade that lesser young working hands who have all the purchasing power would upset the table for growth.

It was predicted that at this rate India, with the biggest young population in the world would beat the US as the most prosperous country of the world by 2050, beating the nearest contender China hollow.

The Western countries did not take this seriously because they all thought this was only about China which had enforced a strict one child norm for over a decade and a half. China did change the rules, even offering incentives for producing more babies, but it came too late as India has already overtaken China in numbers this year.

However no one had planned for the after effects of the two year pandemic on the entire world economy since 2020 which ruined all the plans and forecasts of fortune tellers and we are living in desperate times. Revolt against the elderly who are increasingly seen as parasites is in the rise across the globe and it is infectious.

In this very year 2023, thousands descended the streets in France to protest President Emanuel Macron’s decision to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. Besides, this decision sparked heated debates in Parliament showing that the divide was much deeper among the politicians.

The idea is catching roots and there is no going back. A Japanese Oscar nominated film  ‘Plan 75’ made in 2022 by first time director Chie Hayakawa talks about a chilling future when the elders of the country would be left in the forests or a mountain top to die because they had outlived their utility.

Does this remind us of the Hindu Varn Ashram system which divides a man’s life in four parts Brahmcharya (birth to 25 years), Grihasthya (25 to 50), Vanprastha (50 to 75) and Sanyas (75 to 100).

The Merriam Webster dictionary describes Vanprastha as a forest dwelling Hindu hermit especially: one in the third stage of the Brahmanic scheme of life.

Unlike Shakespeare, who declared that there were seven stages in a man’s life the Hindu Varna system held in high esteem, assuming the average age of humans at 100 says that there are only four stages as described above. What is important here is that it decrees that a normal man must renounce his family, his profession, his belongings and retire to become a hermit and go to a forest at 50.

We don’t know what future this suggests for the fate of the elderly or the Vanprastha but a news published in the ‘Times of India’ five years back is very disturbing.

In the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve in Uttar Pradesh forest officers were surprised to find a number of body parts of old men eaten up by tigers in the forests, according to the Times of India report of 2017.

They discovered to their horror that the villagers near Pilibhit would leave their elders in the forests to be eaten up by tigers. They would then spread their bones and body parts in the fields to claim hefty compensation from the government.

When confronted by the authorities, instead of being ashamed or guilty the villagers said that the elders were a willing part of this deal. We can only imagine how they must have ‘volunteered’ for this harakiri.

Not to be left behind, Bollywood too came out with its own version of the horrifying story in 2022 titled’ Sherdil: The Pilibhit Saga’ written and directed by Srijit Mukherjee starting Pankaj Tripathi, Sayani Gupta and Nereraj Kabi in the lead roles.

Incidentally, even though this is not related, the population of tigers in India has been steadily on the rise. The human population had been matching this which is proved by the fact that India has overtaken traditional rival China as far as population is concerned. But talking about tigers, the statistics of Project Tiger run by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) showed that there were 1411 tigers in 2006 which went up to 2967 in 2018.

And again incidentally eight more Cheetahs were added to India’s already growing population of Tigers in 2022 brought from Namibia and released in Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh. A dozen more were added three days back.But as said earlier that is only incidental.

When noted humour writer Jonathan Swift suggested cannibalism as a means to prevent Ireland’s kids “from being a burden on their parents or country for making them beneficial to the publick” in ‘A modest proposal’ in 1729 it was taken as a satire.

But no one seems to be shocked when mass suicides, or leaving the ‘useless elderly’ increasingly seen as parasites, in the forest, is in the news. It just reads like an item in a crime bulletin issued by the local police.