Girl refuses bicycle with CM’s photo, says he supported army action on Darbar Sahib

Anju Agnihotri Chaba
Posted: Sun Dec 11 2011, 03:52 hrs
Hoshiarpur:
She comes from a sleepy village and is a farmer’s daughter. Only 16 years old, she has dared to take on the state government by refusing to accept a free bicycle, which carries Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal’s photograph.
More, she has even listed the reason for her refusal to accept the freebie being doled out under the much publicised Mai Bhago Scheme.

“Badal was the Chief Minister when killing of Sikhs started in 1978 and he had even written to central government, which reflects that he also supported army action on Darbar Sahib in 1984,” she has written in a letter that she sent to the principal of the government senior secondary school, Pakhyal, in Hoshiarpur district. She is a student of 10 plus one at the school.

Meet Manjit Kaur. A resident of Chakowal Shekhan village, she is being hailed as another Mai Bhago - the legendary Sikh warrior woman who fought along side Guru Gobind Singh and is said to have stayed on with the Guru as one of his bodyguards.


The girl refused to accept the bicycle by writing an application to the school principal in which she mentioned that Badal, recently bestowed with Panth Rattan-Faqr-e-quam award, was responsible for the turmoil faced by Sikh community in the last several years in, which several members of the community were killed.

She said that while the photo of the CM has been fixed on the basket on the front portion of the bicycle, Mai Bhago’s name is written near the feet - on the chain cover.

In her letter, she mentioned that she had walking to the school for the past 11 years and she can do the same for another year too. “But I would not take the cycle bearing Badal’s photo,” she has stated.

Manjit, who likes to read about the happenings in Punjab, said that she wrote the application on her own. She said that a few weeks ago chief parliamentary secretary Mohinder Kaur Josh had come to their school to distribute the bicycles. But she didn’t want to accept a thing that had the photograph of a person who is in a way responsible for killing of so many Sikhs, so she wrote an application to the principal.

Manjit’s father Gulwinder Singh, a farmer with just three acres of land, is a proud man. “Ever since the news of this application came out, I have been getting calls from people in India and abroad,” he said. The family said that it was Manjit’s decision and she has done whatever she thought was right.

source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/girl-refuses-bicycle-with-cms-photo-says-he-supported-army-action-on-darbar-sahib/886374/0