Blasts meant to reactivate Punjab's militant movement?
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ WEDNESDAY, JUNE 01, 2005 02:28:01 AM ]
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/a...ow/1128534.cms
NEW DELHI: The twin blasts in Delhi cinema halls were not to protest against the screening of the controversial movie Jo Bole So Nihaal, but to reactivate Punjab militancy by seemingly defunct organisations. One of the top leaders of Babbar Khalsa International (BKI), Satnam Singh had told his associates in Stuttgart in December last year, that it was high time something was done in Delhi and Chandigarh.
"We can't say that that the blast was to protest against the screening of the movie because the attack had been planned as early as December 2004," said top cop K K Paul. According to the police, it was a joint operation by several former Punjab militant organisations and the possibility of it being aided by J&K terror groups can't be ruled out as the RDX for the attack was arranged from Jammu.
Balwinder Singh (24), who was arrested from Nawanshahar, was chosen to execute the plan apparently because of his past association with BKI. "A school dropout from Nawanshahar, he was currently unemployed. He has two sisters, both settled in the US. Balwinder and Jaspal are childhood friends," said joint commissioner of police (special cell) Karnal Singh.
According to the police, for Jaspal and Balwinder carrying out the attack was a matter of ideology, but the other two, Vikas and Jagannath, got involved because of the money offered to them. Jagannath (36), in fact, belongs to Gorakhpur and earlier worked with a factory in Moti Nagar. He left the job and started working as a driver with a Karol Bagh jeweller. The police, however, describe him as a smuggler who was ostensibly running a courier agency on the Indo-Nepal border for the last few years. He had also managed to purchase a house in Uttam Nagar recently.
Jaspal's father apparently deals in foreign currency. The family members on Tuesday told the police that he can't be involved in the blasts because he had gone to Australia four years ago and did not return. Very little is known about Vikas, the fourth accused, barring the fact that he is unemployed.
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Is Sikh militancy on revival mode?
Jaideep Sarin (IANS)
Chandigarh, June 3, 2005
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_138...00900010001.htm
The first week of June every year is a troublesome month for some people in Punjab. This time it is no different and the ghost of Sikh militancy has come to haunt the state again this week.
The decision by the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee - the religious parliament of Sikhs - to build a memorial to those killed in the Indian Army's assault on the Golden Temple in 1984 has revived painful memories of Punjab's brush with terrorism in the 1980's and 90's.
Indian troops stormed the Golden Temple, the holiest Sikh shrine, in Amritsar in June 1984 to flush out Sikh militants led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Besides militants, many innocents too died in the military operation.
The week is observed as "Ghallughara week" in Punjab to highlight the killings that took place.
Just a couple of days before the 21st anniversary of the attack, the SGPC announced its plan to have a memorial for those killed in the "Operation Bluestar".
The announcement would not go down well with authorities, as they know that the memorial would be more to terrorists than innocent civilians who were killed in the offensive.
Soon after the SGPC announcement, the Damdami Taksal - a Sikh religious organisation once headed by Bhindranwale - declared finally that Bhindranwale, a man who once held sway in Punjab, was indeed dead.
The acknowledgement came 21 years after Bhindranwale was actually killed in Operation Bluestar on June 6, 1984.
All along, the Taksal had maintained that Bhindranwale was "alive" and did not let anyone occupy his seat in the organisation.
Coupled with this was the bomb blasts in two New Delhi cinema halls during the screening of Hindi movie "Jo Bole So Nihal" on May 22 that killed one person and left 60 injured.
The police nabbed three suspects this week for the blasts, two of them from the once dreaded Babbar Khalsa International, a Sikh terrorist organisation.
Though Sikh terrorism was snuffed out in 1993, attempts to revive it have been made from time to time.
In January last year, three top Babbar Khalsa terrorists involved in the conspiracy of assassination of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh escaped from the high security Burail jail complex in Chandigarh.
They were believed to have crossed into a neighbouring country after escaping through a 108-foot-long tunnel dug from their high security barrack.
Nearly half a dozen senior Punjab and Chandigarh police officials who investigated the jailbreak and arrested one of its masterminds - Narain Singh Chaura - are now facing life threats.
Chaura, who was let off by a court last month, had alleged that these officers had tortured him while in custody.
The Punjab and Chandigarh police were beefing up security of these officers and their families in view of the latest threats.