Pravasi Bharatiya Hindu-Sikh groups in New York organise rally for peace in West Asia

MORE than 2,500 people, braving inclement weather and driving rain assembled in front of the Israeli Consulate in the heart of the city of New York on April 25 and wholeheartedly supported Israel’s right to exist and to determine its own fate.

More than 50 organisations representing Jewish, Christian, Hindu and Sikh faiths took part in the rally. A formidable contingent of Hindus and Sikhs led by Narain Kataria and Arish Sahani, President and Vice President of Indian American Intellectuals Forum, Satya Dosapati and Nand Lal Ramsinghani of the Hindu Human Rights Watch and Bhupinder Singh Bhurji, Chairman, Namdhari Sikh Foundation, USA, participated in the rally. The chief organiser of the event was Beth Gilinsky, Political Strategist, Action Alliance.

The supporters carried playcards saying that since 9/11/2001 attack on the World Trade Center, the followers of ISLAM the so called “religion of peace” have carried out 15,101 deadly terrorist attacks and killed more than 75,000 people.

In his brief speech, which he delivered with electric effect, Shri Kataria touched the deepest cord in the psyche of the audience.

Extract of Shri Narain Kataria’s speech:
“Dear friends like many Jewish people I am also the victim of islamic jihad. I am the survivor of the Partition of India that took place in 1947. I was 17 years old when Islamists forced Hindus to divide British India into two parts in 1947-Hindu India and Islamic Pakistan.

I was living in that part of India which is now called Pakistan . Since I was a Hindu, my life was made miserable by Islamic police and Islamic militia. I was hounded out by radical Islamists. Many of my friends and colleagues were singled out, chased and brutally killed. Thousands of Hindu and Sikh girls were gang raped by fanatic Islamists. More than 10 million Hindus and Sikhs were driven out of the region that is now called Pakistan.

In 1947, there were 23 per cent Hindus living there in Pakistan. Today the Hindu population in Pakistan has been reduced to 1 per cent in just 60 years. All the others have been ethnically cleansed.

The same thing happened in Bangladesh . The Hindu population has been reduced from 35 per cent in 1947 to 9 per cent in 2010. More than 400,000 Hindus were driven out in 1989 from Indian ruled Kashmir . These Hindus are living as refugees in their own country.

Today we Hindus are here to express our sympathy and support to Israelis who are surrounded by militant and fanatic Islamic nations armed with deadly weapons. Islamic nations want to wipe out Israel from the world map. Let me tell you, Israel is the frontier of the free world. Once we lose Israel , we lose the free world.”