The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today asked Majha Congressmen not to sell their souls by mouthing lies about compensation granted to the Jodhpur detainees with the sole purpose of pleasing the Gandhi family which had attacked the holiest of Sikh shrines – Sri Harmandir Sahib with tanks and artillery shells.In a statement here, senior mp Ranjit Singh Brahmpura said it was shocking that persons like Patti mla Harminder Singh Gill, who had themselves been wrongfully arrested and kept in illegal confinement along with 364 others, were now singing paeans in favour of the Congress and giving credit to chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh for grant of central compensation to the detainees. “This is furthest from the truth”, Mr Brahmpura said.The Akali mp said the factual position was that it was the UPA government which had taken a stand against granting compensation to the Jodhpur detainees. He said the CBI continued with the UPA government stand till union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal met home minister Rajnath Singh and requested him to direct the CBI to change its stance and also release compensation to the detainees as directed by an Amritsar court. “It is only after this that the centre released Rs 2.16 crore to the State for disbursal to the detainees”, he added.
Asking Harminder Gill and other Majha Congressmen not to do politics over dead bodies and the misery of Jodhpur detainees who were the victims of Congress oppression, Mr Brahmpura said Harminder Gill was also lying by giving credit to Capt Amarinder for coming up with the earlier Rs one lakh compensation grant to the detainees. “It is S Parkash Singh Badal who as chief minister issued a notification in 2001 to grant compensation of Rs one lakh to each of the detainees. However after the change of guard and accession of Capt Amarinder to the chiefminsitership in 2012 this grant was denied to the detainees for more than four years. It was only six months before the elections that this grant was finally released to the detainees”, he added.Asking Harminder Gill not to forget that he was among those who had raised their fight against oppression, the Akali mp said Gill should have told the congregation yesterday that he had been wrongfully incarcerated by the Congress government which had also denied him compensation even after it was found that this detention was in violation of the law as well as the constitution. “If Gill was true to the cause he once upheld he should have disclosed that the grant of concession by the centre was an indictment of the Congress government and the Gandhi family which had perpetrated this crime against the Sikh community. Instead Gill has chosen to indulge in sycophancy and suck up to the Gandhi family rather than be true to the Sikh community”, Mr Brhampura added.