Walls of at least five metro stations in Delhi were found to be vandalised with pro-Khalistan graffiti, the police said on Sunday. The vandalisation comes ahead of the G-20 summit that is scheduled to take place at the capital on September 9 and 10.
Slogans like 'Delhi Banega Khalistan' and 'Khalistan Referendum Zindabad' were found written across walls of Punjabi Bagh, Shivaji Park, Madipur, Paschim Vihar, Udyog Nagar and Maharaja Surajmal Stadium metro stations. All of them are located in west Delhi.
Members of Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), a banned group were present in multiple metro stations, including Shivaji Park and Punjabi Bagh and wrote pro-Khalistan slogans, the police said in a statement.
The police also added that the SFJ released footage of the metro stations where the slogans were written. A senior Delhi Metro Rail Corporation official said, “It is a law and order situation. We will cooperate with the Delhi Police.”
Delhi Police's Special Cell has been deployed at various locations in relation to this matter. Reportedly, SFJ chief Gurpatwant Singh Pannu said in the video that a Khalistan referendum will be held in Surrey, Canada on September 10.
In July, a group of 'Khalistan supporters vandalised the Indian Consulate in San Francisco. The consulate had been set on fire, which was quickly extinguished by the San Francisco Fire Department. On August 13, a prominent temple in Canada’s British Columbia province was vandalised by two Khalistan supporters with “anti-Hindu and anti-India graffiti,” according to a PTI report.
In March 2023, a Hindu temple in Brisbane, Australia was vandalised by pro-Khalistan supporters with anti-Hindu graffiti. These are a few among the several such incidents that have taken place mainly outside India this year.
