Punjab Deputy CM Sukhbir Badal meets Sushma Swaraj over problems of Sikhs

New Delhi: Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, along with a delegation of Sikh leaders, on Saturday met External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and demanded that the issues pertaining to Sikhs in the United States be included in the agenda of meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama.

Seeking early redressal of the issues pertaining to Sikhs, the Shiromani Akali Dal chief asked Swaraj to put these issues on the agenda of the Prime Minister during his visit to the US.

Badal said that there was need to take a sympathetic view on the issue of the asylum-seekers who sought political asylum in foreign countries either due to economic reasons or during the militancy era of 1980s.

Badal asked the External Affairs Minister to grant travel documents and visas to them, besides allowing them to apply for Indian citizenship as the case may be without delay, saying the Congress-led UPA regime has miserably failed to address the issues concerning Sikhs.

Badal also took up the issue of 41 Indians abducted and held captive in Iraq and took an update from the minister on their status and efforts made by the Centre to free them as soon as possible.

Highlighting the issue of racial attacks on Sikhs in different parts of the world, Badal laid stress on the need to sensitise all officials in Indian Missions abroad to take up the issues concerning Sikhs.

He also laid emphasis on the need to take up the issue of Indian farmers in Georgia and asked for diplomatic efforts to sort out the issue. "A number of Punjabis were invited by Georgia to own farmlands there a few years ago. These Punjabis bought the land in Georgia and were doing farming there. Every year,

these Punjabis come back to India for holidays but for the last six months they are not being given visa by Georgia to return and their land is being confiscated," he said.

Swaraj assured Badal that the issue of political asylum seekers and also of blacklisted Punjabis will be considered sympathetically and the government's priority was to free all abducted persons who are held captive in Iraq.

She assured that efforts will be made to sensitise foreign missions abroad about Sikhs and the situation in Georgia be handled amicably. Rajya Sabha MP Naresh Gujaral and former Union Minister Balwant Singh Ramoowalia were part of the delegation.