Smethwick Sikhs support India hunger strike campaigner
Sikhs in the Black Country are praying for a man on hunger strike in India, as the president of their temple has flown out to support him.
Malkit Singh Tehang, president of Guru Nanak Gurdwara in Smethwick, has visited civil rights campaigner Bapu Surat Singh, aged 83, currently on hunger strike in India as he calls for the release of 'political prisoners'.
It follows a gathering outside Parliament by hundreds of Sikhs in July as they urged MPs to call for India to release Sikh prisoners they said had served their sentences.
Bapu Surat Singh has been on hunger strike in the Punjab since January but has been repeatedly force-fed by the authorities.
The gurdwara in High Street, Smethwick, regularly has around 10,000 worshippers at weekend and is visited around 4,000 times a day.
Committee member Jatinder Singh said: "At the temple we have been holding prayers.
"Our president has been to seen Bapu Surat Singh and is more reassured that he is in high spirits. He is going to continue his struggle until his demands are met."
Rob Marris, MP for Wolverhampton South West and chairman of the all party parliamentary group for British Sikhs, has written to foreign secretary Philip Hammond saying: "You may be aware that Bapu Surat Singh is a man in his 80s who has been on hunger strike in Punjab since January 2015. He has been repeatedly force-fed by the Indian authorities.
"He is protesting about the continued detention of Sikh prisoners who have completed the mandatory minimum part of their term of imprisonment.
"His deep concern is about one part of a very troubling pattern, widely reported to exist in India; namely, people imprisoned for long periods despite not having been convicted by a court of any crime, and people remaining imprisoned despite having completed their sentences. Many view such prisoners as political prisoners."
