[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 43 (Tuesday, March 18, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E501]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              SAVE THE LIFE OF DEVINDER PAL SINGH BHULLAR

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 18, 2003

  Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar is about to be put 
to death in India for a crime even India admitted he didn't commit.
  I thank my friend Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh, President of the Council 
of Khalistan, for bringing this shameful case to my attention. The 
Council of Khalistan put out a very informative press release on the 
case.
  The chief judge of a three-judge panel from India's Supreme Court 
found Mr. Bhullar not guilty of the crime of which he was accused, 
involvement in a bombing. The judge ordered Mr. Bhullar's release. 
Instead, the Indian government tortured Mr. Bhullar until he signed a 
fake confession. Now they are trying to put him to death.
  Unfortunately, this is just the latest episode in India's abuse of 
minorities, which has been well documented in Congress by many of my 
colleagues and me. This brutal atrocity against justice must be 
stopped.
  The Bush Administration should demand Mr. Bhullar's release, or at 
least a new trial. In addition, they should impose sanctions on India, 
cut off its aid and trade, and put this Congress on record in support 
of self-determination for the Sikh Nation of Khalistan and the other 16 
minority nations seeking their freedom from India. This should be done 
in the democratic way, through a free and fair plebiscite. It is time 
for India to start acting like a democracy, and it can start by sparing 
the life of Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to enter the Council of Khalistan's press 
release on Bhullar into the Record at this time for the information of 
my colleagues and the public.

          [Council of Khalistan--Press Release, Feb. 25, 2003]

            Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar's Life Must Be Spared


     Indian Constitution Only Protects Majority Hindus Minorities 
                   Eliminated, Directly or by Courts

       Washington, D.C.--The impending execution of Devinder Pal 
     Singh Bhullar shows that the Constitution of India only 
     protects the majority Hindu population, according to Dr. 
     Gurmit Singh Aulakh, President of the Council of Khalistan, 
     which leads the Sikh struggle for independence from India. 
     Dr. Aulakh called on the President of India to stop the 
     execution. Bhullar was accused of a 1993 bomb blast near the 
     Youth Congress office in Delhi in which 20 people were 
     killed. Congress leader M.S. Bitta lost a leg in that attack.
       The presiding Judge of a three-Judge bench in the Supreme 
     Court of India found Professor Bhullar, a political activist, 
     `Not Guilty' and directed that he be released. However, 
     Professor Bhullar was convicted based on a forced confession 
     obtained through torture, which was retracted. On that basis 
     India wants to impose capital punishment on Professor 
     Bhullar. Sajjan Kumar and H.K.L. Bhagat, who personally 
     incited the murder of thousands of Sikhs in Delhi, got off 
     scot-free without any punishment. Even by Indian standards, 
     this is an outrageous miscarriage of justice.
       ``The Bhullar case is merely the latest example of how 
     India eliminates minorities,'' said Dr. Aulakh. Indian police 
     arrested human-rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra after he 
     exposed their policy of mass cremation of Sikhs, in which 
     over 50,000 Sikhs have been picked up, tortured, and killed, 
     then their bodies are declared unidentified and secretly 
     cremated. Then Mr. Khalra was murdered in police custody. His 
     body was not given to his family. Similarly, the police 
     murdered former Jathedar of the Akal Takht Gurdev Singh 
     Kaunke. His body was not handed over to his family.
       Last spring the Indian police stood aside under orders 
     while militant Hindus murdered 2,000 to 5,000 Muslims in 
     Gujarat. Australian missionary Graham Staines was murdered a 
     few years ago by VHP activists. Staines and his two young 
     sons were burned to death while they slept in their jeep. 
     Their killers surrounded the jeep and chanted ``Victory to 
     Hannuman,'' a Hindu god. After the murder, Staines's widow, 
     who was working with lepers, was expelled from India. No one 
     is ever punished for these atrocities. Nuns have been raped, 
     priests have been murdered, and Christian churches have been 
     burned by the fanatic, fundamentalist Hindu nationalist 
     militants.
       ``It is clear from these actions that India is not the 
     democracy it claims to be,'' said Dr. Aulakh. ``Instead it is 
     a tyrannical Hindu theocracy where minorities die or 
     disappear,'' he said. ``There is a consistent pattern of 
     Indian government efforts to protect its tyrannical rule over 
     the minorities of South Asia.''
       The Indian government has murdered over 250,000 Sikhs since 
     1984, more than 200,000 Christians since 1948, over 85,000 
     Muslims in Kashmir since 1988, and tens of thousands of 
     Tamils, Assamese, Manipuris, Dalits (the aboriginal people of 
     the subcontinent), and others. More than 52,000 Sikhs are 
     being held as political prisoners. The Indian Supreme Court 
     called the Indian government's murders of Sikhs ``worse than 
     a genocide.'' On October 7, 1987, the Sikh Nation declared 
     the independence of its homeland, Punjab, Khalistan. No Sikh 
     representative has ever signed the Indian constitution. The 
     Council of Khalistan is the government pro tempore of 
     Khalistan, the Sikh homeland. The Sikh Nation demands freedom 
     for its homeland, Khalistan.
       ``Only in a free and sovereign Khalistan will the Sikh 
     Nation prosper. In a democracy, the right to self-
     determination is the sinc qua non and India should allow a 
     plebiscite for the freedom of the Sikh Nation and all the 
     nations of South Asia,'' Dr. Aulakh said.




                          ____________________