Ontario, Canada: In a statement in the Canadian parliament on November 1, 2017 the New Democratic Party (NDP)’s Parliamentary leader Guy Caron said that the massacres of Sikhs in India in November 1984 was “genocide” and not mere riots.
Full text of the statement of Guy Caron reads as follows:-
November 1, 2017
NDP STATEMENT ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE 1984 SIKH GENOCIDE
Today, the NDP’s Parliamentary Leader, Guy Caron made the following statement in the House of Commons:
“‘It was not riot, it was genocide.’
Mr. Speaker, these are the words of Rajnath Singh, India’s Home Minister. Today and for the next three days, Sikh Canadians and Human Rights Advocates will mark the 33rd anniversary of the 1984 Sikh Genocide.
Sikh men were burned alive. Women were subject to unthinkable sexual violence and children were murdered in gruesome fashion.
Many, including, Former Indian Supreme Court Justice, GT Nanavati have pointed out that state resources were instrumental in these pre-meditated killings.
I am reminded that thousands of Canadians live with this pain as survivors and bearers of intergenerational trauma.
Both the Delhi Assembly and the Ontario Legislature have recognized these atrocities as genocide.
I stand in this place in hopes that someday soon, the House of Commons and this government will do the same.
The path to reconciliation will not be easy, but for the victims and survivors, today we remember.”
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