Chandigarh: Responding to a news report published by the The Tribune newspaper under title: “Border residents rake pride in Balakot, but ‘no politics please’, Shiromani Akali Dal Amritsar (Mann) president Simranjit Singh Mann has written a letter to the Editor of the English vernacular.
Simranjit Singh Mann [File Photo]
The letter, a copy of was shared by SADA (Mann) with the Sikh Siyasat News, is being reproduced below for the knowledge of readers of the Sikh Siyasat News (SSN):
To:
The Editor,
The Tribune,
Chandigarh,
Dated 08 May 2019
Dear Sir,
Please refer to your news item date 07 May 2019 published in your esteemed newspaper The Tribune under the title-“Border residents take pride in Balakot, but ‘no politics please”. In this respect our party the Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) states that this report deals with hardcore Sikh populations on the Indo-Pak border and this belt is never in favor of a war with Islamic Pakistan as it is a nuclear armed state and if these two countries come to exchange nuclear blows the Sikh and Punjabi population settled along this border- Rajasthan, Haryana, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Leh-Ladakh and Kutch would be totally devastated and annihilated. The Sikhs and Punjabis would never wish to dig their own graves and therefore no one in this region would support the Balakot raid by the IAF, which is doubtful as per the international press.
We think this report would win the hearts of the ultra rightwing Hindu nationalists but The Tribune should stop feeding these war mongers with such news that their headquarters in Delhi and Nagpur make a wrong judgment.
Premier Narinder Modi has failed in his foreign policy whereby the US has threatened sanctions if the Hindu state buys oil from Iran. At the moment the Hindu state has begun distributing oil from its oil reserves and we know this is a temporary step to tide over the elections which end on 19 May 2019. After that our party’s intelligence reports indicate that the price of petrol will shoot up to Rs.110 per liter, diesel to Rs.100 per liter and gas cylinders price will jump up by Rs.110. Therefore supporting such an extremist BJP RSS government is only soiling the reputation of the English Indian press and its electronic media. The report of the Reporters without Borders is before your desk which state that your country’s reputation as far as truth and fairness is concerned has fallen to the 140th position out of 190 countries that have been judged by these international Reporters. We think that is something to be ashamed of and we would not mind if your paper took the advantage of article 19 of the Constitution which guarantees the right to free speech and expression. We always look towards The Tribune to publish truthful news and not be spiteful to us Sikhs by calling us by rude terms as- terrorists, radicals, hardliners and extremists. Though these words are impudent we overcome this chant of yours by reciting a doggerel which we used while in school. It goes like this– “sticks and stones may break our bones but your words won’t hurt us”.
With the US sanctions on Iran the Hindu states brilliant ambition to build the Chabhar port in Iran to side step Islamic Pakistan, to find an alternative route to Afghanistan and the Central Asian Republics has also fallen to Modi’s foreign policy antics. The Gas pipe from Iran to Fazalke in Punjab has also been mucked up. We are sorry for the Hindu state for losing a friendly Shiah state of Iran, whose nuclear structure the Hindu state built to counter the Sunni Islamic nuclear arsenal of Islamic Pakistan. Bad days we would say and wish for happier times when your newspaper and the Hindu Indian press and media make up with the Sikhs.
Thanking You,
Yours Faithfully,
Simranjit Singh Mann,
President,
Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar).