Amritsar : With the issue of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal, coming yet again at the centre stage after the apex court passed an order telling the Govt to come out with a solution, the hardline Sikh group Dal Khalsa has cautioned that any attempt to construct the SYL canal has a potential to trigger the “rebellion in Punjab.”
The Sikh organisation has categorically stated that the people of Punjab have not allowed the construction of the SYL canal in the past and will not allow in future what may come.
“Punjab owns the waters of the rivers Sutlej, Ravi and Beas and no legislation or court could deprive the State of its legitimate right of ownership. We will defend the rights of the State at any cost and would not let anybody take away the waters forcefully with State’s might and if it will happen, we have a right to resist and fight back,” said spokesperson of Dal Khalsa Kanwar Pal Singh.
“Khalistani militants have laid down their lives and suffered imprisonment for years for defending the same waters. We won’t let their sacrifices go in vain,” he said in a statement.
Singh said the contentious Canal, one of the key issues of the Punjab conflict, led the state to many long-winded agitations. Clearly, the canal was planned against universally accepted Riparian principles with an eye on looting the scarce water resources of Punjab.
He further said Punjab is the state who’s more than 55 per cent of the river waters are being diverted to non-riparian states like Rajasthan Delhi, J&K and Haryana either under duress or chicanery of the Indian leadership.
This allocation of Punjab’s river waters by successive Central governments has been unjust and illegal as it is violative of the Indian Constitution, which provides no authority to the Union to allocate or administer waters from the rivers of a state that flow only in its territories.
Rajasthan- a non-riparian state is receiving 10.5 MAF water from Punjab Rivers. Rajasthan is not even part of the Indus basin. Similarly, Haryana is getting 7.8 MAF of waters, while before the reorganization of the states in 1966, Haryana region was receiving only 0.9 MAF.
