Open Letter to O. B. Laden

Sikh distance themselves from terrorism

NY Sikhs mount $100,000 ad campaign



GURMUKH SINGH

TIMES NEWS NETWORK



EW DELHI: The Sikh community in New York is launching a $ 100,000 campaign in the mainstream media to dispel the impression that they are bin Laden sympathisers. More than three dozen incidents of attacks against Indians, mostly Sikhs, have been reported since Tuesday.

Businessman Sant Chatwal said ads and supplements will be carried in the New York Times and other papers from tomorrow ``to tell the Americans who we are``. These attacks have been carried out by Hispanic and other groups which don`t know anything about the Sikhs, he added.

His son, hotelier Vikram Chatwal, said community leaders took camera crews from CNN and other channels to city gurdwaras on Friday to tell the Americans that the Sikh community has nothing to do with bin Laden. ``We feel as empty as any American without the Twin Towers.``

Meanwhile, in the continuing attacks on Indians, two Sikhs were attacked near the Richmond Culture Center on Friday. Two students were also attacked in Queensboro College. ``But when the attackers came to know that their victims were neither pro-bin Laden nor Pakistanis, they apologised,`` said a Sikh leader from Richmond.

``In the prevailing atmosphere anyone wearing a turban is being presumed to be a bin Laden supporter,`` said Baldev Grewal, editor of Sher-e-Punjab newspaper in Manhattan.

A Sikh temple in West Sacramento was also targeted in what the police termed ``a hate crime``. One man was held for vandalism.

Sensing more trouble in the coming days, the Maryland-based Sikh Media Watch and Resource Task Force and other organisations have urged Sikhs to avoid going out and always carry cell phones with them ``as the anti-immigrant feeling is likely to inflame when the US mounts attacks on the terrorists and their sympathisers.``

In an interesting twist, US-based pro-Khalistan elements, who have been denying any allegiance to India, are putting out statements about their being Indians, not Arabs, in order to avoid any blacklash, Grewal said.

From the NYT: ``The secretary of state said that Pakistan had agreed to all of Washington`s requests. ``The Pakistani government was very forthcoming and we`re appreciative,`` Mr. Powell said.``

A victory for good sense. And a victory for good sense is a victory for all people - be they Indian, Pakistani, Afghani, American or anyone else. Let us all pray therefore for continued steps guided by common sense and by God for the coalition against terrorism.

Tahmed

Second that thought and would add that Pakistan should also keep her interest always paramount.

The focus of the coalition seems to be Osama and/or the Taliban. This the wrong focus, but there can still be profit in it for Pakistan.

Bijli :

If the people who did the hijackings and crashed

the airplanes into the World Trade Center, killing

so many people, ( including Pakistanis ) did a

crime against Islam, then I expect to see fatwas

from some leading Islamic religious leaders.

I expect them to say that it is a religious duty

for every Muslim to help catch the culprits.

If it is OK for Muslims not to act just because

the West has acted, then how can Muslims complain

when they get scr * *ed ?

-Arun Gupta

Nasah, Stuka,

Has anyone read my post completely? Havent I said that Ossama Bin Laden and his terrorist organization are involved?

I asked a serious question... something which many have speculated and atleast One Canadian intelligence agency has put forth.... Now instead of attacking me and accusing me of throwing in the name of Mossad.... Please be serious and control your snakes of hate.

As for Indian Government`s involvement in activities against its own people, many well known Indians and many of my friends view the Ganga Hijacking in 1971 as Indian Government`s strategy to refuse Pakistan its air space. Similarly USS Liberty in 1980s according to the History Channel and many Sources within the CIA was destroyed by Mossad.

With that said anyone who has read my articles in various papers and knows my stance knows that I have a great admiration for Israel... and am known as a supporter of it, for which I was repeatedly attacked by the Islamic Society at Rutgers University....

Fatimah #41 Thanks for sharing your experience on that terrible day. I think these events have touched the hearts of thinking people not just in the US but across the world.

Gowardhan: Please report for duty at the nearest police station, from where you will be taken straight to the Annual Convention of Morons where you will present your various chowk posts (starting with the previous one concerning naming of children in Pakistan). After you are through presenting your posts, the morons will each come and personally thank you for making them feel good and intelligent. After that, you will be asked to submit to questioning by the Sub-Committee of Hate-Filled Morons to whom you will provide ways to fill their empty heads with hatreds. Next (sorry, Jay is jumping up and down asking to be presented to these committees as well...)

Re: Romair #42

``This will be a public relations coup for Pakistan, and a disaster for India....``

Now Vajpayee is really scared! Playing those zero-sum games again, huh? I have seen your various positions shift from -- `Pakistan should ditch USA and fully ally with China` to `Pakistan should not allow any US ground forces` to celebrating US-Pak cooperation. Do you have any abiding principles, or do you simply turn towards wherever the winds blow?

Re: YLH

Had you not announced that you were not going to be around Chowk for a few days? What happened?

Re: Tahmed321

``Let us all pray therefore for continued steps guided by common sense and by God for the coalition against terrorism``

And let us pray that America does not abandon Afghanistan like it did the last time once its interests were served.

Re: Tahmed321 on Gowardhan and Jay

Very funny. I could not resist smiling even in these terrible days.

Last evening, there was a prayer vigil in our neighborhood for the dead in NYC and the Pentagon. The participants were from various ethnic backgrounds -- there were two afghan women as well. I could not, but help feel for them. They must be feeling very vulnerable these days. Yet, the fact that americans from various backgrounds got together for a common prayer (the african-american christian pastor was almost apologetic before offering a christian prayer in front of a mult-ethnic congregation) was a powerful, moving emotion. The ties that bind, are more powerful than the ones that separate.

Romair

``f a multi-national force lands in Pakistan, and Pakistan is on worldwide television for even a few hours, what to talk of a few days or months, it will have finally gone beyond the US State Dept. and reached into the living rooms of America. This will be a public relations coup for Pakistan, and a disaster for India.``

Why a disaster for India? How is India affected?

Re: Field Marshall Romair`s Zero-Sum Strategic Analysis

There is no dearth of reasonable, sane interlocutors in Pakistan. The only trouble is that they are not in khaki, and thus have to kow-tow to geniuses like Romair in GHQ. If Romair, who is US-educated and has a `broad` outlook persists in self-defeating zero-sum calculus, I wonder what the geniuses in GHQ must be like. Below, fortunately, is an example of good sense being propounded by one sane person:

All unquiet on the western front

http://www.dawn.com/2001/09/15/op.htm#3

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Very well, Bijli, no fatwah, no effort to get

any. It is not my funeral.

-Arun Gupta

React Response to Rdesikun#53

Dear sir : thanks u for remark. I hoped undustand

i am not happy with mr. laden at all.He is lufanga chor. he is problom muslim and not muslim mentaly.

he gave bad name to everybody. Plz do not attack thinking or you like mr. laden? I demand answer respectful sir.