JALANDHAR: With Panthic turf already getting unpredictable, as parts of Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report on Bargari sacrilege and Behbal Kalan police firing have come out in the public domain and put the previous SAD-BJP government in the dock, the Akali leaders on Tuesday took up purely Sikh issues with Union home minister Rajnath Singh in Delhi.Led by party president Sukhbir Singh Badal, the Akali delegation demanded that the Union government approach the Chief Justice of India for getting a designated special court where all cases of November 1984 Sikh massacre should be heard on daily basis and trials be completed in six months.Briefing the media after the meeting, Sukhbir said the home minster had also ensured presence of officers and passed instructions to get their issues addressed. He said they had raised the issue of release of several Sikhs prisoners still being in jail despite serving their terms.The SAD delegation also demanded that Sikhs from Afghanistan be granted Indian citizenship. They also raised the issues of Gurdwara Dongmaar in Sikkim, Sikhs facing eviction from a locality in Shillong, minority status for Sikhs in Jammu and Kashmir, giving compensation to remaining 365 Jodhpur detainees, to convert Balwant Singh Rajoana’s death sentence into life term and exempting Siikh women from wearing helmet in Chandigarh.The delegation included Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal , SGPC president Gobind Singh Longowal and DSGMC president Manjit Singh GK among others.The issue of Sikh prisoners had taken the centre stage during the SAD-BJP regime in 2013-14. Initially, the Punjab government had inserted advertisements that lifers could not be released but later then chief minister Parkash Singh Badal wrote letters to the Union government for their release after groundswell on the issue.

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