SGPC to install Sikh militant’s portrait at central museum

A meeting of SGPC’s executive committee (EC) presided over by SGPC president Advocate Harjinder Singh was held in Amritsar on Wednesday wherein a decision was also taken to install the portraits of SGPC’s deceased junior vice-president Principal Surinder Singh and former SGPC member Harinder Singh Rania at the museum.

Dal Khalsa has thanked SGPC executive body “for accepting its appeal to install the portrait of Balwinder Singh Jatana at the Sikh museum”.

“Jatana deserved this honour as he had sacrificed his life while defending the rights of Punjab during the Sikh struggle,” said Dal Khalsa leader Kanwar Pal Singh.

Moosewala’s SYL song goes like “Kalam Nai Rukkani hun nit nva Ek Ganj aau/Je na tale fer mur Balwinder Jattana Aau/Fer Put Begane Nehra Ch demand La hi dinde/Una Chir Pani Chaco, Tupka Nai dinde (My pen won’t stop and a new song will be written every day. If you don’t step back then someone like Balwinder Jatana will return. The daring sons turn canals into vegetation).”

On July 23, 1990, chief engineer of SYL M L Sekhri and superintending engineer Avtar Singh Aulakh were killed by Sikh militants led by Balwinder Jatana. Their action halted the construction of SYL and it has still not resumed. Vegetation has come up at the site of the SYL canal over the last 32 years which is mentioned in the song.

Four family members of Jatana were allegedly killed by Punjab Police on August 29, 1991. Jatana himself was killed in an encounter by the Punjab Police on September 7 the same year.

The SGPC president also criticised the decision of Punjab government to come up with an industrial park near the Mattewara forest in Ludhiana.