Chief Khalsa Diwan cancels its World Sikh Conference in Canada.  Fearing backlash over the controversy involving its former president Charanjit Singh Chadha, the Chief Khalsa Diwan (CKD) has cancelled World Sikh Educational Conference which was scheduled to be held in Canada in November 2018. The event is now likely to be held at Sri Anandpur Sahib.CKD’s honorary secretary for education Jaswinder Singh Dhillon told on Friday, “When such an incident happens, people are very critical and we didn’t want that there should be any disgrace or anything which may further aggravate this issue. It could create any further problems for CKD”
The 115-year-old educational and philanthropist organization of Sikhs had earlier decided to hold such conferences at Canada and another in Norway in 2018 and 2020, respectively. While Toronto-based founder of Datawind Sunit Singh Tuli was to organize the conference in Canada, president of Norway-based Gurdwara Singh Sabha Baljinder Singh and other European Sikh leaders were to facilitate the Norway conference.

Dhillon said that Tuli was also member of CKD and was appointed chairman of the reception committee of the proposed conference. The conferences were aimed to strengthen Sikh education and provide a platform to unite global Sikh community.Sources said that as many as 60 CKD members had deposited advance money to attend the proposed conference.
Notably on December 26, 2017, a video of Chadha with a women principle of a school run by the CKD had gone viral. Not only police registered a case against Chadha and others but also Sikh’s supreme temporal seat Akal Takht decided to keep an eye on Chadha’s character for two years. The Sikh clerics had imposed a ban on Chadha from addressing any religious, social, political or academic functions

“After that incident, we had held a meeting and decided to not hold the conference in Canada and also returned the advance deposits of Rs 20,000 each,” said Dhillon . He said that there was general consensus among members to hold 2018 Conference at Sri Anandpur Sahib, while they were yet to decide about the proposed conference in Norway.

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

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