NEW DELHI: A Sikh rights group has filed a lawsuit asking a federal court in New York to designate Bharatiya Janata Party’s ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh as a "foreign terrorist organisation". This is just before the visit of US President Barack Obama to India.

The federal court in the Southern District of New York has issued a summons for US Secretary of State John Kerry to respond to the lawsuit within 60 days.

Sikhs for Justice in the declaratory lawsuit asked the court to designate the RSS as a foreign terrorist organisation, accusing it of "believing in and practicing a fascist ideology and running a passionate, vicious and violent campaign to turn India into a "Hindu" nation with a homogeneous religious and cultural identity".

The SFJ said the RSS is making headlines for its campaign “the home coming to forcibly convert Christians and Muslims to Hindus."

The declaratory lawsuit requests the court that "RSS along with its affiliates and subsidiaries be designated as a foreign terrorist organisation... and designate RSS as a specially designated global terrorist entity”.

Accusing the RSS of targeting minorities, the petition alleged the involvement of the Sangh in the "demolition of Babri Masjid", "instigating" army operation in the Golden Temple, "burning of churches and rape of Christian nuns" in 2008 and the Gujarat riots in 2002.

The Sikhs for Justice describes itself as a “non profit, tax-exempt US based human rights advocacy group. Sikhs for Justice is striving to disseminate true and correct information, statistics, figures and data regarding the Genocide of Sikhs in India from 1984 to 2000 to the international community and to create considerate public opinion.

Sikhs for Justice is mobilizing Human Rights Groups, International Community and Governments on a common platform to punish those responsible for November 1984 Sikh Genocide.”

The suit said that the RSS was employing an agenda to make India a homogenous nation:

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