Team News Riveting
The opposition parties backing the on-going protest of farmers against the agriculture bills, who claim to be the “custodian” of Mahatma Gandhi, are surprisingly tight lipped to react on the Washington incident where the statue of Father of the Nation was vandalised.
Khalistan separatists and anti-India elements on Saturday defaced the statue of Mahatma Gandhi outside the Indian embassy in Washington. They also draped their flag around the statue of Mahatma Gandhi to show their support for the farmers protesting against the farm laws in India.
The Embassy has strongly condemned the act while lodging a strong protest with US law enforcement agencies.
A car rally was organised by American Sikhs in Washington DC in support of farmers who are protesting against the recently enacted farm laws in India. The opposition parties, who had been grilling the ruling BJP on the issue of Mahatma Gandhi over certain issues in the past, had been backing the farmers’ stir.
The protest was hijacked by the separatist Sikhs who were carrying Khalistan flags with anti-India posters and banners that read they were representing “The Republic of Khalistan.”
People were seen waving ‘Khalistan’ flags and raising pro-Khalistan slogans at the spot.
“The statue of Mahatma Gandhi at the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Plaza in front of the Embassy was defaced by Khalistan elements on December 12, 2020,” Indian Embassy in Washington DC said.
“Farmers and Khalistan supporters have the same agenda and that is independence of Punjab from Indian occupation,” said Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, general counsel to Sikhs For Justice. Pannun was designated a terrorist by India in July.
While the Government of India had raised objections through its Embassy, the farmer bodies under whose banner the protest was going on and the political parties backing them, were astonishingly silent on the issue. None had taken a call to criticise those involved in the crime.
