Sheila, Sikh delegation meets Sonia

New Delhi, June 3: Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and a delegation of Sikh leaders on Thursday, June 2 met and thanked UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi for the government's decision to remove names of 142 Sikhs from a blacklist.

Dikshit, Education Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely and hundreds of Sikh leaders representing various organisations met Gandhi at her residence and conveyed their gratitude for providing the "relief" to the NRI Sikhs.

"We expressed our gratitude to Soniaji for taking up the issue with the government," Lovely said.

The Centre has deleted names of 142 NRI Sikhs from the black list after a detailed review while the exercise is still continuing in 27 other cases, Home Minister P Chidambaram had said on Wednesday, June 1.

The NRI Sikhs whose names were mentioned in the black list are alleged to have been routinely denied travel permission to the country on grounds that they had taken part in anti-national activities during insurgency period in Punjab.

PTI