DEAD HORSE OR MAD DOG?
“Khalistan has no ground support in Punjab today,” stated a senior Indian safety official, however some outstanding separatist leaders overseas “are involved in drugs, gun-running, crime syndicates and have links to Punjab too”.
A lately retired high Indian safety official known as Khalistan a “dead horse” however insisted “you have to act to pre-empt” as they’re elevating cash overseas, coaching folks and agitating for India’s division.
India “has to be careful”, he stated, as a result of points are “boiling under the surface”, together with unemployment and rampant drug use in Punjab, which borders on India’s archrival Pakistan.
Both officers requested to not be named given the present sensitivity of the problem.
India has not publicly launched any latest proof of Sikh separatist involvement with abroad crime, however New Delhi says it has repeatedly shared such proof with international capitals.
An aggressive nationwide safety posture is a vital ingredient of Modi’s cultivated strongman picture, constructed on actions together with air strikes in opposition to Pakistan, ending particular privileges for the disputed Kashmir area and concentrating on left-wing activists the federal government says are linked to Maoist militants.
Kanwarpal Singh, political secretary of the Punjab-based Dal Khalsa group, which lobbies for a separate Khalistan, rejected hyperlinks to medicine or crime. Modi’s authorities is in search of to “defame, isolate and eliminate” Sikh separatist leaders, he stated.
The coverage is to “call the dog mad and shoot him”, he stated.
Other critics of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has didn’t make political inroads amongst Sikhs, accuse it of exaggerating the Khalistan drawback for political acquire.
“It is exploiting whatever limited Khalistani element there is in the country or in the diaspora to mobilise the Hindu population,” stated safety knowledgeable Ajai Sahni.
Dal Khalsa’s Singh stated that after the year-long 2021 farm protests by principally Sikh farmers and activists bruised the BJP politically, “they are taking revenge on the Sikh community”.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/india-prime-minister-modi-sikh-separatists-3972011
