File picture of Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun
| Photo Credit: AP

Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the U.S.-based pro-Khalistan attorney, has backed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s take on Sikhs in India, saying that Mr. Gandhi “justified SFJ’s global Khalistan Referendum campaign”.

Mr. Pannun is the general counsel to Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), a group based in the U.S.

In his statement released Wednesday (September 11, 2024) — which The Hindu has seen — Mr. Pannun said that Mr. Gandhi’s quip on the “existential threat to Sikhs in India” was bold and historically accurate.

Mr. Pannun referred to Mr. Gandhi’s address to a gathering of Indian Americans in in Herndon, a Virginia suburb of Washington D.C., on Monday (September 9, 2024), in which the Congress leader accused the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of considering some religions, languages, and communities of being inferior to others and said that the fight in India is about this and not about politics.

“While addressing the gathering in Washington D.C. where many pro Khalistan Sikhs were in attendance, Rahul Gandhi justified SFJ’s global Khalistan Referendum campaign when he stated: ‘Fight in India is whether a Sikh will be allowed to wear turban and kada, go to gurudwara,’” reads Mr. Pannun’s statement.

“Rahul’s statement on “existential threat to Sikhs in India” is not only bold and pioneering but is also firmly grounded in the factual history of what Sikhs have been facing under successive regimes in India since 1947 and also corroborates SFI’s stance on the justification for Punjab Independence Referendum to establish Sikh homeland Khalistan,” he added.

Mr. Pannun, wanted in India on terror charges, holds dual citizenship of the U.S. and Canada. In November last year, U.S. federal prosecutors charged Indian national Nikhil Gupta of working with an Indian government employee in the foiled plot to kill Pannun in New York.

Following the allegations, India appointed a high-level inquiry committee to look into the inputs provided by the U.S. on the plot.