MELBOURNE – Former SAD minister Sikander Singh Maluka faced a protest during a kabaddi tournament in Melbourne on Sunday. Protesters claimed that a shoe was hurled a shoe at him amid slogans of “Maluka Murdabad”. Some protesters claimed that SAD was responsible for “sacrilege” incidents and therefore such an action was justified.
His comments post Bargari sacrilege incident in 2015 when he reportedly told people to celebrate Diwali when Sikh groups had given a call from Black Diwali and his participation in a function in December 2016 at Rampura Phool in which pattern of Sikh Ardaas was copied in a controversial manner, came to haunt him.
The kabaddi event had been organised by Kings International Club in Melbourne where Maluka was the chief guest. He had gone to Melbourne on behalf of Punjab Kabaddi Association(PKA) as he is the PKA president. SAD leader Tejinder Singh Midhukhera, who is the vice-president of PKA, was also there with him.
ਸਿਕੰਦਰ ਸਿੰਘ ਮਲੂਕਾ ਦਾ ਮੈਲਬੋਰਨ ਦੀ ਸਿੱਖ-ਸੰਗਤ ਵੱਲੋਂ ਜ਼ੋਰਦਾਰ ਵਿਰੋਧ
Posted by SinghStation on Sunday, 8 April 2018
Information revealed that a match between the club teams who came from India and Pakistan was going on and Maluka was sitting on stage when around seven youngsters who were part of the audience started raising slogans against Maluka. One of the protestors, then reportedly threw his shoe towards the stage with slogans “Maluka Murdabaad”. The shoe though did not hit Maluka.
Sources revealed that a few empty bottles, plastic chairs too were tossed in the air. However, nothing hit Maluka and Midhukhera as the stage was at a distance from the place of protest. Soon after the incident, security took the youngsters away from the site of the match. Sources also revealed that two persons were also taken in custody by the local police, however released soon.
In a 6 minute video of the incident, one person claimed, ”After shoe hurling, Maluka left the stage and went inside.”
Maluka, however, said: “Both clubs had a clash….It should not be linked to politics.”
“No shoe was hurled on me, there was some sloganeering, but it had no political motive, rather two kabaddi clubs of Melbourne had some tussle with each other and hence persons from other club came to spoil the atmosphere. But police took away two persons and others were turned away from match venue and hence everything went in a smooth manner.” said Maluka over phone.
Earlier, a protest was done by NRIs settled in Canada against Maluka when he had visited Canada in February, 2016 ahead of Vidhan Sabha polls.