SAN FRANCISCO/LONDON: Less than a week after the US government declared it had stopped the Indian state from killing prominent pro-Khalistan leader and India’s most wanted man, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, on US soil, more than 127,000 American Sikhs cast ballots in favor of the Khalistan Referendum for the first time on US soil.
Sikhs of all ages lined up in orderly queues from the early hours of the morning to vote in favor of the creation of Khalistan. 127,000 Sikhs were able to cast ballots, according to the independent Punjab Referendum Commission (PRC), while about 30,000 waited in line and were unable to do so because of time constraints.
Paul Jacobs, a PRC member, declared that the Khalistan Referendum’s next phase will take place in Sacramento, California, on March 31.
Despite opposition from India, the US government had allowed the pro-Khalistan separatist organization Sikh For Justice (SFJ) to hold a Khalistan Freedom Referendum on US soil in accordance with the First Amendment Act.
After the US State Department publicly accused India of attempting to kill its citizen Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the founder and head of Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) and the Khalistan Referendum, who arrived at the polling place under heavy security, on US soil in a clear violation of US sovereignty, diplomatic relations between the two countries reached a low point. While India was urging the US to detain Khalistani Sikhs who had attacked the Indian Consulate in San Francisco a few weeks prior, voting was taking place.
Following the vote, Pannun spoke to thousands of Sikhs and declared that the US and Canadian governments had confirmed that India was preparing to execute Sikhs who had demanded their right to self-determination and a separate Sikh homeland. This would lead to an acceleration of the campaign against India.
Millions of Sikhs will be motivated to battle India by the living ghost of the Sikh martyrs, according to Pannun, and Sikhs who get threats from India should not be afraid.
The Sikh chief declared, “We are going to break India’s back.” Our slogan is “Destroy India economically, kill Modi’s politics, and kill India politically.” We will advocate for the Bombay Stock Exchange to be shut down. Due to the genocide against Sikhs in India, millions of Sikhs today reside outside of the country.
Not too long ago, India carried out a genocidal operation that resulted in the deaths of over 100,000 Sikh men and women. Its policies of genocidal violence persist. We are using democratic channels to resist the genocide in India.
He claimed that fighting Indian state terrorism is the only option available to the millions of Sikhs who desire liberation from India. He claimed that although India is free to try and kill as many Sikhs as it likes, the demand for Khalistan will not go away.
Dr. Bakhshish Singh Sandhu, a co-founder of Sikhs for Justice, praised the outstanding turnout. “We are pleased that a large number of people have come to this location in order to cast their votes in favor of a referendum on Khalistan, which would free Punjab from Indian rule. We are accumulating as many votes as we can before moving further.
To cast their votes for a new nation of their own, thousands of Sikhs traveled by car, bus, and rail to San Francisco on Sunday, waving vibrant yellow and blue flags.
In California, there are about 250,000 Sikhs, primarily in the Bay Area or Central Valley. The vote in San Francisco on January 28 came after votes in a number of UK towns, including London, Geneva, and Rome, as well as in a number of Canadian and Australian locations with sizable Sikh populations. The City of San Francisco owns and operates Civic Center Plaza, the site of the American Phase of the Khalistan Referendum.
“Voter Eligibility” for residents of Indian-Governed Punjab was proclaimed by a non-aligned expert group supervising the referendum on the topic “Should Indian-Governed Punjab Be an Independent Country?”
