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The Surrey school district has cancelled a pro-Khalistan event that was set to be held at Tamanawis Secondary School this Sunday.
According to a statement, the cancellation was due to a promotional poster that showed an AK-47 assault rifle being stabbed by a pen below an image of the school in Newton.
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The poster for the Sept. 10 event also had the faces of Talwinder Singh Parmar — who was found by Canada’s Commission of Inquiry into the Investigation of the Bombing of Air India Flight 182 of having orchestrated the deadly terror attack — and Hardip Singh Nijjar, the former leader of Surrey’s Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara who was murdered outside the temple in June.
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“Earlier today, our district cancelled a community rental of one of our schools due to a violation of our rental agreement. Promotional materials for the event featured images of our school, alongside images of a weapon,” said a school district statement on Tuesday.
“Despite repeated attempts to address the issue, the event organizers failed to remove these concerning images, and materials continued to be posted throughout Surrey and on social media.”
“As a school district, our primary mission is to provide quality education and support to our students and ensure a safe environment for our school communities. Our agreements, policies and guidelines, including those for rentals, support our district in creating a safe environment for our community. Anyone renting our facilities must adhere to this.”
The district said its decision was not political and that Sikhs For Justice, which is organizing the event, would receive a refund. The Khalistan movement seeks to establish a sovereign state in the northern region of India.
On Tuesday afternoon, Sikhs For Justice spokesperson Gurpatwant Singh Pannun said that the organization would launch legal action against the B.C. Ministry of Education and Surrey Schools for “violating the freedom of expression, for maligning the Sikh community and the Khalistan Referendum Campaign.
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Pannun said the AK-47 in the poster represented the use of violence against the Khalistan movement.
“The allegation of weapon alongside the school is patently baseless, as the poster in question clearly depicts the pen symbolizing the referendum, overpowering and disabling the gun,” he said.
Despite Surrey Schools claim to the contrary, Pannun said the group did redo the poster without the gun and began replacing the original posters on Sept. 2.
He said there was a campaign organized by the “anti Sikh and pro India lobby” that bombed the district with demands to cancelled the event being held at the school.
Pannun did not say whether an alternate location for the referendum had been found.
The Khalistan plebiscite is a major international voting project that is not binding. It asks people of Sikh origin living outside of India whether they want the Sikh-majority state of Punjab to become an independent nation.
dcarrigg@postmedia.com
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