Surrey, Canada - The RCMP plans to screen floats in an annual Sikh parade to ensure terrorism and political violence aren't glorified.
Chief Supt. Fraser MacRae said Thursday the RCMP and the City of Surrey, near Vancouver, want to avoid any repeat of 2007's Vaisakhi parade, where organizers honoured several assassins and terrorists as martyrs or "shaheeds" on parade floats.
Included as a martyr was Air India bombing mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar, as well as the assassins of Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi and slain leaders of the International Sikh Youth Federation and the Babbar Khalsa, both banned groups in Canada.
The event, organized by Dasmesh Darbar Sikh temple, is scheduled for April 12 and expected to attract more than 100,000 people.
"We have had ongoing frequent dialogue with the temple executive regarding our and the city's expectations for a successful Vaisakhi parade this year," MacRae said. "What we want the parade to be is what it is intended to be, which is a celebration of the Sikh religion, a celebration of the harvest. It is not a place for political statement, especially insofar as those types of images that celebrate acts of violence."
MacRae said last year's glorification of violence was "extremely inappropriate."
MLAs and MPs from all parties attended last year's parade. The controversy led to a secret memo being prepared for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, according to a document released to the National Post under Access to Information legislation.
Almost all of the memo of April 19, 2007, is blacked out, except a few lines that simply confirm that "on April 7, the Sikh Canadian community of British Columbia celebrated Vaisakhi . . . MP Jim Abbot attended the parade on your behalf."
MacRae said the Dasmesh executive has agreed that the RCMP will have veto power over any inappropriate image in the parade.
"The agreement we have reached with the temple along with the city is that there will be a pre-screening of all floats before they enter the procession to make sure there is no glorification of terror or political violence in keeping with the appropriate intent of the Vaisakhi parade," MacRae said. "Our position is unequivocal and we are supported in that 100 per cent by the city because last year was an embarrassment for us and the city, not to mention the inappropriateness of that activity.
"We are doing everything we can to ensure that it doesn't happen again this year."
But one temple leader told Canwest News Service Thursday that some of the "shaheeds" will still be in the parade.
"We didn't decide what we are going to do, but we have to have all the shaheeds' pictures in there," said trustee Satinderpal Singh Gill, the former world leader of the ISYF.
He said Parmar's picture would be removed this year at the request of his family, but Gill would not rule photos of Beant Singh and Satwant Singh, two of Gandhi's assassins, or two other assassins known as "Sukha" and "Jinda," who gunned down a retired Indian army general as he bought groceries.
"All the shaheeds we have to have. Just no Talwinder. . . . All these pictures are established over there in the Akal Takhat in India," Gill said, referring to the supreme body of Sikhism in Amritsar.
The Dasmesh temple has put up a spirited defence of Parmar and the other so-called martyrs.
Temple president Sudager Singh Sandhu told Canwest News Service last month that Parmar was never convicted in the Air India bombing and was killed in custody by Punjab police in 1992 while involved in the fight for a separate Sikh country dubbed Khalistan.
Displaying Parmar's photo, Sandhu said, is no different from Christians putting up a picture of Jesus Christ in a church.
"I am not saying [Jesus] was a terrorist. But whoever killed him thought he was a terrorist. I love Jesus," Sandhu said. "We are talking about pictures in the temple. That's why I said whoever is working for their countries or religion, people kill them because they are terrorists. But they are not terrorists for everybody. I like Jesus."