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Narindra Modi victimizing Sikhs in Kutch area of Gujrat: India’s Minorities Commission
July 30, 2013 | By Sikh Siyasat Bureau
Kutch, Gujrat (July 30, 2013): It is learnt that a report by India’s National Commission for Minorities (NCM), has said the Narendra Modi-led Gujarat government had “prima facie” discriminated against the state’s 500-member Sikh community in Kutch by ordering them to sell their land and return to Punjab because they were not Gujaratis, citing the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948.
Narindra Modi
The commission has strongly disapproved of the Gujarat government’s interpretation that only Gujarati farmers could own or buy land in the state under the Act, a move which could dispossess 500 farmers, while their land accounts have already been frozen.
According to Hindustan Times (HT): [i]n his report, commission member Ajaib Singh, after a field visit on June 24-28, said, “There appears to be discrimination against Sikh agriculturalists by the Gujarat government”. The report quoted Singh’s statement that “Modi, who has the habit of suppressing and terrorising the minorities of Gujarat, was in this case targeting and victimising the Sikh farmers of Kutch”.
The minority commission said the order of the state government, asking farmers to sell their land and return to Punjab, was struck down unanimously in the Gujarat high court unanimously, but the state government had now challenged this verdict in the Supreme Court. The commission itself could not do much since the issue was under judicial consideration, the report said.
In a recommendatory letter to Modi, the commission has asked the Gujarat government to accept the verdict of the high court. He also requested him to administer a national minority scholarship programme and urgently set up a state minorities commission.
According to HT Ajaib Singh has also written to Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal to intervene in the matter.
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Related Topics: Sikhs in Gujrat
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