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Thursday, Apr 09, 2009
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Sikhs disrupt rail services

Sarabjit Pandher

— Photo: AP

Demand action: Sikhs block a rail track during a protest in Amritsar on Wednesday.

CHANDIGARH: Rail services along the Ambala-Amritsar and Jammu sectors were disrupted as activists of radical Sikh organisations, religious seminaries and the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) blocked traffic at various places in Punjab on Wednesday to protest the CBI giving a clean chit to Congress leader Jagdish Tytler in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case.

Trains to and from Amritsar, Ferozepur, Ludhiana and Jammu were running late as hundreds of activists of the Sant Samaj, the Damdami Taksal, the Sikh Students’ Federation, the Dal Khalsa and the SGPC squatted on the track in Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Jalandhar and Ludhiana districts. The authorities stopped the trains at various stations as a precautionary measure.

No untoward incident was reported. The protesters, demanding action, accused the Congress of pressuring the CBI to clear the name of Mr. Tytler before nominating him in the polls.

Meanwhile, the president of the Youth Akali Dal (YAD), Kiranbir Singh Kang, said a meeting of office-bearers and party workers of the youth wing would be convened at Jalandhar on Thursday.

The Delhi unit of the YAD would hand over Rs.2 lakh to Sikh journalist Jarnail Singh for “highlighting” the anti-Sikh riots case.

(At a press conference on Tuesday, he hurled a shoe at Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram in protest against the CBI’s clean chit to Mr. Tytler.)

In a separate statement, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal sought to emphasise that exemplary punishment to the guilty in the 1984 riots case, and not just withdrawal of Congress ticket, was the core issue.

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