[Member spoke in Punjabi]
[English]
Mr. Speaker, this month, millions of Sikhs around the world will gather to celebrate Vaisakhi, the day the Khalsa was initiated.
It was on this day 100 years ago that thousands of men, women and children gathered in a park meters away from the Golden Temple to celebrate Vaisakhi, when the colonial Colonel Dyer marched in with a regiment of soldiers, blocked all entranceways, and opened fire. He did this over and over again.
Hundreds were killed by bullets, while others died jumping into a well or while trying to scale the walls surrounding the park. This became the tipping point for the Indian independence movement.
Families never saw justice for this atrocity. Colonel Dyer was merely forced to retire and was barely disciplined.
I rise today, 100 years later, to honour the victims of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Our thoughts and prayers are forever with them, and we will never forget this tragedy.