BREAKING NEWS: Simranjit Singh Mann Arrested

[nanosecond]

Prominent Indian Sikh politician arrested on sedition charges: report

(AP)

14 June 2005

NEW DELHI - Police arrested a prominent Sikh politician on charges of sedition on Tuesday in northern Punjab state, days after he demanded a separate homeland for India’s Sikh minority, a news report said.

Simranjit Singh Mann called for an independent Sikh state - Khalistan, during a ceremony last week at the Golden Temple in the city of Amritsar, the holiest Sikh shrine. He reiterated his demand on Monday at another public function and made anti-India speeches that prompted his arrest, the Press Trust of India said.

Mann heads a faction of Shiromani Akali Dal, a Sikh-dominated party in Punjab that previously governed the state.

Police have registered at least four cases against him, the news report said without providing further details.

Mann’s arrest was prompted by a complaint from the Sikh Temple Management Committee, the Sikh community’s top religious body in the state, which does not support his campaign for an independent state and objected to his using the Golden Temple on June 6 to seek backing.

In the 1970s and 1980s, a violent separatist movement killed and displaced tens of thousands of people in Punjab. The movement reached a crescendo in 1984 when Indian troops raided the Golden Temple where militant separatists were holed up. Months later, then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh security guards in what was widely considered revenge against the Golden Temple raid.

Although the movement was crushed in the following years, some Sikh groups continue to raise the demand for a separate state.

[gupt_paapi]

TYPICAL of the world's largest democracy.. wot abt free speech?? hmmmm :doh:

[smartsingh24]

acts such as these are evidence of a meniachal dictatorship and oppresive governments like those of Stalin, Hitler, and Saddam.

[Sony]

Was it SGPC who filed the complaint? :doh: