LONDON: Mounted police took position outside the Indian High Commission in London Wednesday while a police helicopter whirred overhead as a raucous crowd of pro-Khalistan protesters barricaded off from the landmark Aldwych building shouted anti-government slogans, countered by the waving of the tricolour by a large group of Indians standing on the roof.
This scene of a confrontation brewing beneath the blanket of security formed the backdrop to a protest by Khalistan sympathisers that dragged well beyond the 3.30pm cut-off set by the UK authorities.
The barricades had been put up to foil a rerun of the vandalism at the high commission last Sunday, when separatist Khalistan supporters lowered the national flag there and attempted to plant theirs in a breach that invited an official statement of protest from the Indian government and an outpouring of indignation from diaspora.
Uniformed officers have been patrolling the Aldwych neighbourhood since that incident, with Metropolitan Police vans stationed at India Place round-the-clock. While the barricades that came up ahead of Wednesday’s protest confined the flag-waving pro-Khalistan crowd to the opposite side of the road outside the Waldorf Hotel, their chorus of slogans would have pierced the air almost a mile away.
Eggs and other objects were hurled at the entrance to the high commission from across the barricades, leaving the ground a slippery mess.
The protesters, many of them covering their faces with balaclavas or scarves, faced the high commission building draped in a huge tricolour and held aloft placards saying “Punjab under siege” and “Stop Sikh genocide”. They had arrived in a convoy of coaches after assembling in gurdwaras in Coventry, Leicester, Luton, Derby, Southall, Slough and the West Midlands. The protest, triggered by the crackdown in Punjab on fugitive Khalistan sympathiser and self-proclaimed preacher Amritpal Singh, had been organised by Sikh Youth Jathebanda and the Federation of Sikh Organisations.
A British Punjabi woman who declined to reveal her identity said, “UK police and Indian police are working in collusion, and all Punjabis branded as terrorists. There is a media blackout in Punjab, which is unlawful. They have arrested Sikh activists protesting in peace unlawfully. We have no rights in Punjab and are oppressed.”
High commissioner Vikram Kumar Doraiswami had put out a video late Tuesday, assuring the British Sikh population that “there is no truth to sensationalist lies being circulated on social media”
“The situation is your ancestral homeland is not what it is being reported. Please watch interviews with the elected chief minister of the state (Bhagwant Mann) and local police authorities. Do not believe the small handful of people putting out fiction and disinformation,” Doraiswami said on the eve of the second pro-Khalistan protest outside the mission.
In the video, the Indian envoy to the UK explained why Punjab Police launched an operation on March 18 against Amritpal’s Waris Punjab De, stating that criminal cases had been filed against the organisation’s absconding chief for spreading disharmony, attempt to murder and attacking police personnel. He said the 100-odd people arrested so far had all been slapped with criminal charges, but would have the right to legal defence under the Constitution.
On the mobile internet and text messaging restrictions that were lifted Tuesday from all but four districts of Punjab, Doraiswami said “certain measures had been taken with regard to communication in the interest of public safety”.
UK’s top diplomat in New Delhi had been summoned by the Union government on Sunday night after the vandalism at the Indian high commission in London. The diplomat was reminded of the UK government’s “basic obligations” under the Vienna Convention.
“India finds unacceptable the indifference of the UK government to the security of Indian diplomatic premises and personnel in the UK,” the ministry of external affairs said.
British high commissioner Alex Ellis condemned the India House breach as “disgraceful”.
This scene of a confrontation brewing beneath the blanket of security formed the backdrop to a protest by Khalistan sympathisers that dragged well beyond the 3.30pm cut-off set by the UK authorities.
The barricades had been put up to foil a rerun of the vandalism at the high commission last Sunday, when separatist Khalistan supporters lowered the national flag there and attempted to plant theirs in a breach that invited an official statement of protest from the Indian government and an outpouring of indignation from diaspora.
Uniformed officers have been patrolling the Aldwych neighbourhood since that incident, with Metropolitan Police vans stationed at India Place round-the-clock. While the barricades that came up ahead of Wednesday’s protest confined the flag-waving pro-Khalistan crowd to the opposite side of the road outside the Waldorf Hotel, their chorus of slogans would have pierced the air almost a mile away.
Eggs and other objects were hurled at the entrance to the high commission from across the barricades, leaving the ground a slippery mess.
The protesters, many of them covering their faces with balaclavas or scarves, faced the high commission building draped in a huge tricolour and held aloft placards saying “Punjab under siege” and “Stop Sikh genocide”. They had arrived in a convoy of coaches after assembling in gurdwaras in Coventry, Leicester, Luton, Derby, Southall, Slough and the West Midlands. The protest, triggered by the crackdown in Punjab on fugitive Khalistan sympathiser and self-proclaimed preacher Amritpal Singh, had been organised by Sikh Youth Jathebanda and the Federation of Sikh Organisations.
A British Punjabi woman who declined to reveal her identity said, “UK police and Indian police are working in collusion, and all Punjabis branded as terrorists. There is a media blackout in Punjab, which is unlawful. They have arrested Sikh activists protesting in peace unlawfully. We have no rights in Punjab and are oppressed.”
High commissioner Vikram Kumar Doraiswami had put out a video late Tuesday, assuring the British Sikh population that “there is no truth to sensationalist lies being circulated on social media”
“The situation is your ancestral homeland is not what it is being reported. Please watch interviews with the elected chief minister of the state (Bhagwant Mann) and local police authorities. Do not believe the small handful of people putting out fiction and disinformation,” Doraiswami said on the eve of the second pro-Khalistan protest outside the mission.
In the video, the Indian envoy to the UK explained why Punjab Police launched an operation on March 18 against Amritpal’s Waris Punjab De, stating that criminal cases had been filed against the organisation’s absconding chief for spreading disharmony, attempt to murder and attacking police personnel. He said the 100-odd people arrested so far had all been slapped with criminal charges, but would have the right to legal defence under the Constitution.
On the mobile internet and text messaging restrictions that were lifted Tuesday from all but four districts of Punjab, Doraiswami said “certain measures had been taken with regard to communication in the interest of public safety”.
UK’s top diplomat in New Delhi had been summoned by the Union government on Sunday night after the vandalism at the Indian high commission in London. The diplomat was reminded of the UK government’s “basic obligations” under the Vienna Convention.
“India finds unacceptable the indifference of the UK government to the security of Indian diplomatic premises and personnel in the UK,” the ministry of external affairs said.
British high commissioner Alex Ellis condemned the India House breach as “disgraceful”.