Sangat Blocks Bombay-Pune Expressway Situation Tense, Further Protests Planned
Mulund, Mumbai (KP) - On Friday, personal bodyguards of the criminal Sirsa Sauda cultist Gurmeet Ram Rahim opened fire on a group of Sikhs whom were protesting the Bombay visit of the Sirsa cult leader.
Ram Rahim, who is accused of multiple murders and rapes, was visiting a shopping mall in this north-eastern suburb of Bombay when several Sikh youths protested his presence. In response, his bodyguards fired more than 20 rounds of ammunition from their assault rifles into the crowd of Sikhs, resulting in the death of Bhai Balkar Singh of the Bir Khalsa organization and injuring dozens of others.
The Bombay attack brought back the memory of the 1978 Nirankari Sikh massacre at Amritsar Sahib and Kanpur in which dozens of Sikhs were killed by heretic pseudo-Nirankaris.
Criminals Leave Scene after Merciless Killing
According to eyewitnesses the Baba was immediately escorted out of the mall and fled the crime scene within one of the 50 vehicles in his entourage. The news of the attack quickly spread throughout Bombay’s Sikh community, who began blocking traffic in various parts of the city. Sikh activists quickly began to track his caravan and converged to stop the cultists from fleeing.
Realizing the route to the Bombay airport was too dangerous, Ram Rahim‘s 50 vehicle entourage then drove north onto the Pune-Bombay Expressway. As news spread of Ram Rahim’s location, thousands of Sikhs began to converge on the expressway and brought it to a standstill for several hours.
Pune Sangat Block Expressway from North
Meanwhile, Sikhs assembled at a Raensabaee Kirtan program (all night hymn singing) in Puna, upon hearing the news of the Bombay attack, gathered with the local Pune Sangat and split up into several units and began surveillance of the Pune National Airport, the opposite side of the Pune-Bombay Expressway. The protestors then blocked the expressway in hopes of stopping Ram Rahim from escaping through this artery.
In an interview with PW, one of the protestors assembled on the expressway stated that after several hours of blockage, the Sangat became convinced that Ram Rahim‘s entourage must have taken a detour, and finally allowed the traffic to move. According to the protestors, the Pune police cited them under IPC 135, and summoned them to appear in court.
The Sikh protestors accuse the central and state governments of turning a blind eye towards the transgressions of the Sirsa cult leader. Last year, the Sauda Cult leader dressed himself as Guru Gobind Singh Ji and mimicked the sacred Sikh Amrit-Sanchar ceremony carried out by Guru Gobind Singh Sahib on Vaisakhi of 1699, resulting in international outcry by the Sikh Nation.
Since then, numerous clashes between his followers and the Sikh community have occurred. On May 17th, 2007, Bhai Kanwaljeet Singh of Sunam was martyred by the cultists near one of his deras in Bathinda.
Bhai Balkar Singh is the second Shaheed in the agitation towards bringing the criminal cultist to justice. Reaction to this latest incident was swift, major Sikh organizations, including the Akali Dal Amritsar, Damdami Taksal, Akhand Kirtani Jatha, and the Singh Sabhas demanded the immediate arrest of the cult’s criminal mastermind and his bodyguards.
Large rallies and protests have been planned across Punjab and India this weekend in response to this incident.
