
NABHA, April 8: Twelve inmates of the maximum-security Nabha Jail continued their indefinite fast today in protest against the alleged indifferent attitude of the Punjab government towards the jailed Sikh youth even as the Akali Dal Amritsar has decided to stage a dharna outside the jail on April 10 to press for the release of the youth.
While four convicts had gone on hunger strike on April 1, another 35 joined the fast on April 3. However, some of them were fed on intravenous glucose. Though there was no official word about the hunger strike, sources told ENS that the jail doctor and those from the Civil Hospital were monitoring the health of the inmates on a daily basis. One of the inmates was given intravenous feeding of glucose in the Civil Hospital today. Another jail inmate, now on fast, is being shifted to a hospital tomorrow for a planned surgery, which had been fixed before the inmates decided to begin the indefinite hunger strike.
Meanwhile, Satnam Singh Behru, president of the kisan wing of the Shiromani Akali Dal Amritsar, today announced that party chief Simranjit Singh Mann would lead a jatha of partymen who would stage a dharna outside the Nabha Jail on April 10 to press for immediate release of the detained Sikh youth.
Behru said that during the last parliamentary and Assembly elections, senior Akali leaders, including Parkash Singh Badal and Gurcharan Singh Tohra, had announced that if voted to power, they would penalise and send to jail Congressmen and police officers responsible for letting loose a reign of terror in the state. They had also promised that all the Sikh youth languishing in jails would be set free.
He said it was strange that immediately after taking over as the chief minister, Badal had forgotten the pressing issues facing the Sikh community. Behru said now that the tercentenary celebrations were on, it was high time the Sikh youth languishing in jails for years be set free.