TORONTO – Over 8,000 Sikhs participated in “1984 Sikh Genocide” remembrance truck and car rally organised by the secessionist group Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) which at one point brought the traffic to standstill and blocked the highways leading to Toronto downtown.
The main highway and dozens of linked roads were choked as hundreds of iconic Canadian trucks drove on the highway carrying flags of Khalistan and slogans of 1984 Sikh genocide.
Slow moving vehicles with flags travelling slowly on the highway created long lanes of traffic. The trucks carried banners saying that “8 days old Sikh infant burnt alive by Hindu mobs’. The trucks carried symbolic coffins to internationalise the genocide of Sikhs in 1984.
The really was taken out just a week before the second phase of Khalistan Referendum which will be held on 6th November in Mississauga by Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) where tens of thousands of Sikhs are expected to cast their votes at Paul Coffee Arena.
At the first phase of Khalistan Referendum on 18 September, more than 110,000 Sikhs had voted for Khalistan Referendum.
Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the SFJ General Counsel and founder, said that 1984 Sikh Genocide is one of the biggest crimes against humanity where an attempt was made to erase Sikh identity and religion.
He said: Sikhs await justice and the real justice will be Sikh homeland of Khalistan. Sikhs want liberation of Punjab from Indian occupation through a democratic referendum which will allow Sikhs to vote on question of future association of Punjab with India.
Gurpatwant Singh Pannun said the RSS-BJP regimes is fuelling a narrative which will lead to another Genocide of Sikhs in India. He added: “The successive Indian regimes used violence against Sikh sovereignty to silence the independence movement but now is the time the community must vote in Referendum to have an independent Sikh homeland Khalistan.”
In the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination on 31 October 1984, organized attacks were carried out with the active connivance of police and administration against the Sikh population throughout India with the intent to destroy the Sikh community.
The violence against the Sikhs continued unabated for several days in more than 100 cities across India resulting in over 30000 Sikhs killed; thousands of women raped; hundreds of Gurudwaras burnt and more than three million Sikhs displaced.
Reports by several international human rights organizations and the most recent report “Mass Violence Against The Sikh People In India: The Events of November 1984 – A Case of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity (updated October 2022)” authored by the UK based Global Diligence LLP, an international law and human rights compliance group, makes it clear that the intentional nature, scope and scale of the violence against Sikhs in November 1984 was genocide.
