Ludhiana (Divya Goyal)Jaswant Singh Khalra, human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, Fresno, California city, Indian express news, current affairsCentral unified board president Naindeep Singh, while speaking to The Indian Express over phone, said: “This would most likely be the first public (government) school in the US to be named after a person from Sikh community.
An upcoming public elementary school in Fresno of California city in the US will be named after Punjab’s human rights activist late Jaswant Singh Khalra.
A decision in this regard was taken during the meeting of Fresno’s Central Unified School District Tuesday late, after at least six of seven board members voted in favor of the proposal.
Khalra, who hailed from Punjab’s Tarn Taran district, is known as “Laawaris Laashan Da Waaris” (Protector of unclaimed bodies), He vehemently fought against alleged fake encounters of Sikh youths by Punjab Police during militancy period. He also used to cremate the unclaimed bodies of such youths killed in extra-judicial killings. He was allegedly abducted and killed by Punjab Police in September 1995. Four policemen were later sentenced to life imprisonment for his murder.
Central unified board president Naindeep Singh, while speaking to The Indian Express over phone, said: “This would most likely be the first public (government) school in the US to be named after a person from Sikh community. Of seven members in the board, six voted in the favor and one abstained from voting. The school building is already under construction and it will be inaugurated in September. We already have a park named after Khalra in Fresno. People here know of his struggles and fight for human rights at mass-level. Not just Sikhs but everyone from the local community respects him.”
Speaking to The Indian Express, Paramjit Kaur Khalra, the wife of the deceased human rights activist, said that it was a matter of immense happiness and pride for her that her late husband’s sacrifice and contribution for human rights was being recognized in the US with the naming of a public school after him. “We got to know of this heartening development a few hours back and we really appreciate it. This only signifies that people across the world are aware of all that my husband did for protection of human rights,” she said.Incidentally, Khalra’s daughter has been a student of Fresno’s public university where she studied for three years. She currently works in the US.
Meanwhile in India, the biopic on Khalra’s life “Punjab 95” continues to await clearance from the authorities concerned. There’s no clarity if the film, with the actor Diljit Dosanjh playing Khalra’s role, will be released in India or not. Paramjit said: “Our only wish is that the film should be released without any cuts as it is entirely based on facts including court proceedings. But it is not in my hands to get the film released. It will be released only when the government approves.”
Divya Goyal is a Principal Correspondent with The Indian Express, based in Punjab. Her interest lies in exploring both news and feature stories, with an effort to reflect human interest at the heart of each piece. She writes on gender issues, education, politics, Sikh diaspora, heritage, the Partition among other subjects. She has also extensively covered issues of minority communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
She also explores the legacy of India’s partition and distinct stories from both West and East Punjab. She is a gold medalist from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, the most revered government institute for media studies in India, from where she pursued English Journalism (Print). Her research work on “Role of micro-blogging platform Twitter in content generation in newspapers” had won accolades at IIMC. She had started her career in print journalism with Hindustan Times before switching to The Indian Express in 2012. Her investigative report in 2019 on gender disparity while treating women drug addicts in Punjab won her the Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitivity in 2020. She won another Laadli for her ground report on the struggle of two girls who ride a boat to reach their school in the border village of Punjab.