To win an advantage from the current India-China military standoff in Ladakh, the Sikhs For Justice (SFJ), a US-based separatist Sikh body spearheading a drive to separate Punjab from the rest of India, has now approached Beijing to support its secessionist campaign, reports The Times of India on June 2. As per the report, SFJ's Gurpatwant Singh Pannun wrote a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping, justifying its position against India and extending the support of pro-Khalistani Sikhs. SFJ’s letter comes a day after Punjab Chief Minister (CM) Amarinder Singh warned China against its bullying tactics on the border and cautioned it to not take India lightly.
Meanwhile, SFJ’s scheduled ‘referendum 2020’ programme - an exercise to know the opinion of Sikhs for a separate Sikh State, has been deferred to 2022, reports The Times of India on May 29. The report mentions a Pakistani private TV channel, according to which the ‘referendum 2020’ was scheduled to be held in November 2020 but has been deferred due to the coronavirus pandemic. The new date for holding the referendum would be announced soon, the report added. Earlier, Pakistan’s Khalistani Sikh leader Gopal Singh Chawla had hinted at a delay in holding the referendum, saying that, “Neither is it written in Quran nor in Guru Granth Sahib that ‘referendum 2020’ has to be held in 2020 only.”