Now Khalsa Aid wants a final surge in signatures to give maximum impact to its call for UK intervention.

The petition has been mounted on the UK Prime Minister’s petitions site, supported by the following statement:

“Since 1947 the Sikhs living in the Punjab in north India have been struggling for basic human rights. There is a lack of economic growth, 80% of the youth in Punjab are drugs dependent, the education system is failing, Amritsar has become the HIV capital of the world, in addition there is an alarming rate of farmer suicides in Punjab – yet the Indian government has failed to take any action to tackle these issues or educate the population living in Punjab.”

Khalsa Aid accuses government in India of wide-scale neglect of the Sikhs in Punjab, resulting in a failure of the infrastructure that is needed to promote the welfare of a population.

Further, it says Sikhs have been robbed of their right to peaceful protest and it cites a recent protest in Ludhiana where Sikhs demonstrating against an individual inciting religious hatred were indiscriminately shot at, “with a number of protesters being shot or trampled to death by police brutality”.

The petition was submitted by Khalsa Aid’s newsletter editor Bal Sandhu, who says signatures can still be added by the deadline of February 16. You can access the Khalsa Aid petition page at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/PanjabSikhs/

The petition is part of a campaign entitled Focus Punjab.

Khalsa Aid founder and chairman Ravinder Singh writes in the newsletter: ” Every trip I have made back to my village in Punjab has ended in sadness due to the rising levels of poverty, drugs abuse, economic downturn and hopelessness amongst the people.

“We, the Sikhs in the west, must not give up on the fellow Sikhs in rural Punjab; these are the same people who stood shoulder to shoulder with our forefathers. After consultation with some of our supporters it was decided to launch a dedicated program to assist the people in rural Punjab, hence the launch of Focus Punjab (FP).

“We have already initiated sponsoring children in the Goindwal area since January 2009. The children also need a stable home for a healthy and happy lifestyle , so we will also be providing aid to the very poor families to reduce the financial burden. We have a long way to go to tackle the menace of drugs and the rising rates of HIV, there is so much to do, but with Gurus grace we can try to
make a difference in the lives of the underprivileged.”

Khalsa Aid, a non-profit organisation, is inviting Sikhs who visit relatives in the Punjab to give up a day to go and see the work of the charity for themselves – to “meet the children we are sponsoring”.

Those interested can contact the charity at khalsaaid@khalsaaid.org

People who would like to work for the campaign can put themselves forward at volunteers@khalsaaid.org

For information about Khalsa Aid’s other work, including its efforts to bring clean water supplies to parts of earthquake stricken Haiti, visit http://khalsaaid.org You can also keep in touch by joining Khalsa Aid on Facebook.