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J&K Sikhs want to migrate to Punjab: Tohra

Former Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee president Gurcharan Singh Tohra today changed his earlier stand and blamed militants in the Kashmir valley for the killing of 36 Sikhs in Chattisinghpora village on March 20.

Tohra had earlier blamed government agencies for the massacre. "I had made this statement when I had not gone to the village. But after my visit to Chattisinghpora and talking to the villagers I came to know that the killings were the handiwork of militants operating in the valley," Tohra told rediff.com in an interview outside the prime minister's home in New Delhi on Tuesday afternoon.

He led a eight member delegation that briefed Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee about their assessment of the situation prevailing in the valley and the sentiments of Sikhs living there.

"We told the prime minister that the Sikhs living in the villages in Jammu and Kashmir want to migrate to Punjab. They wanted to migrate last week itself, but I persuaded them to stay on till the bhog ceremony is over on March 31. I doubt if they will change their mind. I am going to the village on March 31. Let us see what the Sikhs have to say," he said.

Tohra said Vajpayee told them it is important that the Sikhs living in 150 odd villages in the valley do not migrate to other parts of the country. "He looked worried about the situation. He told us that first the Kashmiri Pandits had left the valley and if the Sikhs too left, the militants would have a field day," the Sikh leader said.

Tohra spoke to almost all the villagers in Chattisinghpora. "I told them that each and every village in Punjab would be ready to accept two families each and thereby accommodate all the Sikh families living in Jammu and Kashmir. When the security forces do not venture out after 6 in the evening, how can the Sikhs feel secure in the valley under the present circumstances?" he asked.

What about village defence committees for the Sikhs? "The villagers say if the security had been provided under normal circumstances may be they would have accepted it. But now if they accept security they would become a target for the militants. For almost ten years not a Sikh was killed in Jammu and Kashmir," Tohra continued. "Both the security forces and the militants thought that the Sikhs were a sort of buffer zone. After the massacre the situation has changed and it is no longer what it used to be."

Who is responsible for the massacre? we asked Tohra. "Obviously, the militants. I do not know which group is responsible for the killings, whether the militants were Taleban or some Kashmiri militant groups. But whoever has done it must be condemned."

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