Sukhbir urges PM to ensure release of Sikh prisoners

Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Wednesday sought intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure “expeditious and across-the-board release

Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Wednesday sought intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure “expeditious and across-the-board release of all Sikh prisoners languishing in different jails in the country even after serving the full term of their sentence.”

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In a letter to the Prime Minister, Sukhbir said, “This gesture, urgently required to ensure the implementation of the rule of law in the country, will generate tremendous goodwill and trust in the minds of the aggrieved sections of society.”

He added, “The step is a constitutional obligation of the government as these prisoners are being held in ‘illegal custody’ because there is no law in the country under which a person can be kept in prison for even a minute after the expiry of his sentence. But these Sikhs have been languishing in jails for years, some of them even for decades.” Sukhbir requested the PM to make this announcement “as a mark of profound reverence and devotion to the divine message of Guru Nanak Dev” whose 550th Parkash Utsav is being observed this year. The SAD president said the step would also underline the government’s commitment to the Constitution under which no one can be detained except through the due process of law.

“The step will also instil faith and trust in the hearts and minds of the members of the minority communities throughout the country, and will go a long way towards ending their sense of alienation from the national mainstream created by the long and brazen denial of justice to them under successive Congress regimes,” he said.