JALANDHAR: A Connecticut-based Sikh activist has sued Consul General of India (CGI) in New York Sandeep Chakravorty for defamation. In his letter to Connecticut senator Cathy Osten on November 5, Chakravorty had used strong adjectives against ‘fringe/radical elements of Sikh community in Connecticut’ for carrying on their ‘pernicious and divisive campaign as they see money and power for themselves’. He had written to the senator over the issue of his letter of March 19 with respect to the Connecticut senate bill for designating November as ‘Sikh Genocide Remembrance Month’.The US district court in Manhattan has issued summons to the CGI in the lawsuit filed by Connecticut resident Swaranjit Singh Khalsa, who has been lobbying for this bill. In his letter, a copy of which is available with TOI, the CGI had written, “The fringe/radical and terrorist elements of the Sikh community in Connecticut appear to be oblivious of what has happened in the past and are carrying on their vociferous, pernicious and divisive campaign as they see money and power for themselves in this. We somehow feel that these fringe elements have taken benefit of your trust and made you support this bill.”Apart from other contents of the senator’s letter, the CGI had also taken exception to the figures mentioned in the letter, which stated that 30,000 Sikhs were killed in New Delhi over the course of four days and the decade that followed over 1,50,000 people lost their lives in violence. “These numbers are blatant exaggerations and do not convey the reality. These exaggerated numbers and false narratives are being purveyed by Sikh separatists/terrorists, who demand a separate state for the Sikhs, the so-called ‘Khalistan’.In the November 13 lawsuit, Khalsa has alleged, “The plaintiff claims to have sustained injury to his reputation and emotional distress due to the immensely damaging and defamatory statements made by the CGI-NY in a letter to Catherine Osten, state senator of Connecticut.”In his letter to senator Cathy Osten, CGI Sandeep Chakravorty has also argued, “If one is looking for the precursor of the anti-Sikh violence of November 1984, it was violence and terrorism in India perpetrated by Sikh separatists/terrorists with the support of Pakistan from across the border. Several Sikh organizations have been proscribed by the UN and US State Department and it is a continuous process.”Concluding his letter, the consul general of India reiterated, “And as I have explained before, the anti-Sikh violence had its roots in years of terrorism perpetrated by Sikh terrorists and cannot be subject to selective analysis. The purpose of the people who persuaded you to support the state resolution is to weaken India through divisive policies and this you will agree that we cannot allow to succeed. I am confident that you will view this as not just the declaration of reprehensible events of 1984 as genocide but also the ulterior motives of those who have persuaded you on this course of action”.Asserting that there was no persecution of Sikhs in India and arguing that the word genocide could not be used loosely, he mentioned, “There was anti-Sikh violence in 1984 after the killing of our Prime Minster by her own Sikh bodyguards. The anti-Sikh violence was reprehensible and the judicial process to bring the perpetrators to justice is going on in India,” he argued.

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