Scotland Yard blockades area outside India House, several additional uniformed and mounted officers on horseback deployed
London: Around 2,000 protesters waving Khalistan flags descended upon the Indian High Commission here on Wednesday, March 22, for a demonstration and hurled objects and chanted slogans amid a heightened security presence and barricades, a PTI report in The Tribune, Chandigarh, says.
The Indian High Commission countered by unfurling an additional and extremely large tricolour from the roof of its building. This seemed to anger the protesters further who then hurled coloured flares and water bottles towards the mission building and at police officers and media covering the protest.
Scotland Yard reacted by further blockading the area outside India House and several additional uniformed and mounted officers on horseback were deployed immediately in the area.
Unlike the earlier demonstrations on Sunday, when India House came under attack, the protesters were barricaded across the road with uniformed officers standing guard and patrolling the area throughout. The protesters, including turbaned men, and some women and children, chanted pro-Khalistan slogans.
The organisers used mikes to make anti-India speeches and attack the Punjab Police for alleged human rights violations. The speeches switched between English and Punjabi to make allegations of Indian media bias for calling them fringe elements and backed by Pakistan’s spy agency ISI.
Banners for the so-called “National Protest”, organised by groups such as the Federation of Sikh Organisations (FSO) and Sikh Youth Jathebandia, have been circulating on social media since before a protest on Sunday, which ended in violent disorder at India House.
The Indian government had registered a strong protest over the lack of security measures at its diplomatic mission, which ended in Khalistan flag-waving protesters smashing windows of the Indian High Commission and attempting to pull down the Tricolour.
Since the weekend, several uniformed officers have been patrolling the area in Aldwych and Metropolitan Police vans have been stationed at India House.
The Indian High Commission in London has been working to counter disinformation circulating around developments in Punjab, related to enforcement action against the separatist group ‘Waris Punjab De’.
“Let me assure all our friends here in the UK, especially brothers and sisters with relatives in Punjab, that there is no truth to the sensationalist lies being circulated on social media,” Indian High Commissioner Vikram Doraiswami said in a video posted on Twitter.
“The situation in your ancestral homeland is not what is being reported. The elected chief minister of the state and the local police authorities have put out detailed information, including interviews on television, please watch these. Do not believe the small handful of people putting out fiction and disinformation,” he said.
British Sikh MPs, Labour’s Tanmanjeet Singh and Preet Kaur Gill, were among those to express concern for their UK constituents with relatives in Punjab.
“Monitoring developments surrounding the Punjab. So many of my constituents are concerned for their loved ones given an internet blackout. Ministers should engage with Indian authorities so UK families who can’t reach their relatives regain contact as soon as possible,” Gill tweeted on Sunday.
On being alerted to the violent protest at the High Commission, she added: “No one should resort to such attacks. This is unacceptable.”
Several diaspora groups gathered for a “We Stand By High Commission of India” festive demonstration outside India House in London on Tuesday as a show of solidarity following vandalism.