Pruning of NRI Sikh blacklist result of rigorous pursuance of Akali Dali Dal Delhi- Sarna

New Delhi, March 31, 2016: Mr Paramjit Singh Sarna, President, Shiromani Akali Dal Delhi, while addressing a press conference here today said that the Central Government's move to prune NRI Sikhs black list is the result of 15 years rigorous and consistent pursuance of Shiromani Akali Dal Delhi. It is an appreciating step of the government taken in the right direction.

Everyone NRI and Indian Sikh know that Akali Dal Badal during their uninterrupted 10 years tenure in the government of Punjab has never made a single attempt for the scraping of black list of NRI Sikhs and in view of the forthcoming assembly elections is now trying to highjack the credit of the efforts of Shiromani Akali Dal Delhi for pruning of NRI Sikh blacklist. It is a bitter truth that if Badals would have ever attempted in this regard the black list would have been scraped much earlier, as in the majority of cases NRI Sikhs had been black listed on the reports of the Punjab intelligence reports. It is also a fact that Badals know if these right wing NRI Sikhs will land in Punjab, they will become a bigger political threat to them, said Mr. Sarna.

Of the 36 Sikhs cleared recently from that list, as many as seven (like, Mrs. Raminder Kaur Malik, S. Gurdeep Singh Malik, Kuldeep Singh (Vancouver), S. Balkaran Singh (Toronto), S. Lakhvinder Singh (Toronto), S. Japnam Singh Mallik, Mrs. Gursimran Kaur Malik were cleared on his (Sarna) recommendation. He had held a series of meetings on the issue earlier this year with the Union Home Ministry, said Mr. Sarna

"When it comes to national image and larger community interests, we must cast our political divides aside. No blacklist, visa restrictions based on religious profiling augur well for a vibrant democracy. We thank the Modi government for cutting this so-called Sikh blacklist of the country's own diaspora short. We thank it for accepting our recommendations in this bigger community effort to lift the travel ban on some of the Sikhs living overseas," S. Sarna told a news conference in New Delhi.

The SADD president also called upon the centre to do away with that "age-old" blacklist, which he said was a "black spot on our democracy."

"A state as powerful as India, a democracy as dynamic as India's is not required to blacklist its own Diaspora. India, as it stands today on the global stage, must demonstrate statesmanship by striking down this list in totality because such lists are only maintained by weak, paranoid nations. Today's India is certainly a democratic power to reckon with," S. Sarna said.

He vowed that his party would keep its efforts on to have the Sikh blacklist permanently taken off India's records. "We are hopeful the home minister will hear us with an open mind again as he has gracefully done before. We are hopeful this chapter of black-listing will be closed for good with political consensus," he remarked.