Sikh group to hold parallel protest rallies
Wearing “America Welcomes Modi” T-shirts, Indian-Americans plan to stage rallies to greet Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he arrives at the United Nations headquarters in New York to address the General Assembly on September 27. Similar shows are planned outside the White House in Washington on September 30, when Modi will be meeting President Barack Obama at the Oval Office.
The welcome rallies will be in addition to the mega reception that the Indian-American community is to hold at the famed Madison Square Garden on September 28, the tickets for which have all been sold out.
The Indian-American Intellectual Forum, which is organizing the New York rally, spoke of “unprecedented level of support for Modi in the US”. Members of the community from several cities are expected to join the rally. The rally in front of the White House will be hosted by the US India Democracy Forum.
But it will not be welcome all the way for Modi since a Sikh group that has targeted Congress leaders as well in recent years would be holding its own protest rallies in both cities over the alleged violation of human rights in Punjab and Gujarat.
The New York-based “Sikhs for Justice” has given the call for the protest rallies after its futile efforts to get President Barack Obama to “cancel” his invitation to Modi through a White House online petition that was found to contain as many as 85,000 fake signatures.
last month, even as the Sikh group claimed to have garnered more than the requisite 100,000 signatures entitling them to an official response the Obama administration, the White House scrubbed 85,000-odd signatures at one go after finding them to be fraudulent, slashing the number of genuine ones to a mere 1,300.
In its announcement of “Sovereignty Rally” calling upon its supporters to picket the White House on September 30, the Sikh group claims: “Just because Modi became Prime Minister, it does not mean that he is not guilty of the crimes committed against the religious minorities. We will challenge India’s Modi.”