KHALISTAN EXTREMISM MONITOR
A project of the Institute for Conflict Management
A project of the Institute for Conflict Management
27-Aug-2009
Police in Ludhiana, arrested a suspected militant, identified as Daljit Singh Bittu for allegedly plotting to kill Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his son Sukhbir Singh Badal. Bittu, who was involved in the Khalistan movement of the 1980s, was arrested from his house following information provided by arrested terrorist Balbir Singh Bhutna, Police said. Bhutna, who is suspected of links with militant outfits KCF and BKI, was arrested at Ludhiana railway station on August 25 after an encounter in which one person was killed and two policemen were seriously injured. During the investigation, Bhutna had revealed that they had plans to kill the Punjab Chief Minister and his son, who is also the Deputy Chief Minister of the State. Bittu is president of the Akali Dal (Amritsar- Panjpradhani), a party which he floated after his release from prison. Bittu was also associated with Simranjit Singh Mann's SAD (A) but had later formed his party - SAD (Panch Pardhani).
15-Aug-2009
The BSF personnel arrested four Pakistani intruders who were trying to enter India through the Tarn Taran District of Punjab. Two kilograms of heroin, two pistols, two Pakistani mobiles, and Pakistani currency notes were recovered from their possession.
02-Aug-2009
A suspected woman agent of the Pakistan’s ISI, identified as Savinder Kaur, was arrested along with fake Indian currency having a face value of INR 480000 from Amritsar.
20-Apr-2009
The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has alerted the State to take adequate measures in coordination with central intelligence and security agencies to foil any such attempts. Agencies believed that Wadhwa Singh continues to be a vital link between terrorists in other countries and some radical elements in the Sikh community in Punjab. Wadhwa Singh, hiding in Pakistan, is one of the 40 most-wanted terrorists India has sought to be deported from Pakistan.
18-Mar-2009
The Punjab Police neutralized an ISI-sponsored espionage ring with the arrest of four persons, including two of them with a terrorist background. The arrestees were identified as Naib Singh, Baldev Singh, Sukhdev Singh and Randhir Singh, all residents of different villages in the Faridkot District. Naib Singh and Baldev Singh have a terrorist background and several cases were registered against them, a Punjab Police spokesman said. Sensitive documents relating to important military installations, photographs, charts, movements of military units, diaries containing Pakistani telephone numbers and mobile phones and fake currency of the face value of INR 20,000 were seized from the possession of the arrested persons.
31-Oct-2008
Patiala Police arrested three terrorists, linked to Paramjit Singh Panjwar of KCF in Pakistan, from an unspecified place. They were identified as Didar Singh alias Dari, Bahal Singh alias Bala and Ajmer Singh. A motorcycle, a 9-mm pistol, and some live cartridges along with 200 grams of smack were recovered from their possession. They were reportedly involved in several killings in Punjab in recent years.
23-Oct-2008
Two BKI cadres, identified as Paramjit Singh and Kamaljit Singh, were convicted and sentenced to seven years rigorous imprisonment by a special court for the assassination of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh, in Chandigarh. The duo, described as human bombs in the Police charge sheet, had reportedly had planned to revive terrorism and had been trained by BKI head, Jagtar Singh Hawara.
25-Sep-2008
Security Forces arrested a Rashtriya Rifles (RR) personnel identified as Ranjeet Singh for his suspected links with the KZF when he was fleeing from his unit at Baramulla in Kashmir valley along with two AK-47 rifles in Banihal town on Jammu-Srinagar National Highway.
11-Jun-2008
The Punjab Police claimed to have arrested a woman agent of the Pakistani external intelligence agency, ISI from Jagroan village near Ludhiana. Police said the woman, identified as Ranjeet Kaur, was working as a messenger of the ISI and was sending the message of the ISI to the terrorists operating in India. She was providing them financial support as well.
20-Mar-2008
The Delhi Police claimed to have arrested two BKI militants, identified as Jaswant Singh alias Kala and Surender Singh alias Fauji from near the Sutlej bridge in Jalandhar in Punjab, in a follow-up to the December 31, 2007-arrest of four BKI militants. One.30 Star make pistol and one .22 Star made pistol with 11 live cartridges were recovered from them.
11-Mar-2008
According to Intelligence sources, Pakistan’s ISI is making serious attempts to revive Sikh militancy in India by coordinating and establishing linkages among various terrorist outfits with the Sikh extremist leaders. The ISI activities to this extent have been planned from countries like the US, Canada, Germany, UK, France, Norway, and Belgium, besides Pakistan in the absence of ground support in India. The various terror groups have established nexus among themselves in terms of financial and logistical support, sharing of information and tactical planning. An intelligence input indicated that representatives of BKI, ISYF and LeT met in Berlin on June 2007 and decided that financial support would be extended to the LeT and logistical support to the BKI to carry out terrorist actions in India. Another input indicated that Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM) had got in touch with a UK-based organization, Parliamentarians for National Self-Determination (PNSD) for modelling their ‘position paper’ on the pattern of the ‘Sikh Position Paper’.
05-Mar-2008
In a letter to the guardians of Sikhism's holiest shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh said die-hard separatists were receiving support from sympathizers living overseas. "The government and our agencies have credible information of efforts being made by extremist groups to revive militancy in Punjab," the premier said in the letter. "Much of this is concentrated in countries abroad like the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada and especially Pakistan, where such groups receive a great deal of encouragement from remnants of extremist groups as well as support from other hostile forces," he wrote. Singh was responding to an appeal for a review of an official "blacklist" of most-wanted insurgents who fled India at the peak of the insurgency in Punjab.
15-Feb-2008
Three KZF militants were sentenced to five years rigorous imprisonment by a court in the national capital New Delhi for a bomb blast in the Kailash Hotel in the Paharganj area on March 13, 2000, in which three persons were wounded. The court sentenced the KZF militants, Sukhdev Singh, Satbir Singh, and Purushottam Singh, after holding them guilty for entering into a conspiracy to wage war against the country.
13-Feb-2008
The BKI militants, arrested in connection with the bomb blast at a cinema hall in Ludhiana in Punjab on October 14, 2007, have told the investigators that they had approached the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) for the supply of arms and ammunition. During their interrogation, the militants also told that few Sikh youths had been tasked to kill political leaders including Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal, his son Sukhbir, President of the All India Anti-Terrorist Front M. S. Bitta and former State Director General of Police K P. S. Gill. These youths were being trained by Pakistan's external intelligence agency, the ISI, in the handling of arms and ammunition including fabricating of improvised explosive devices.
04-Feb-2008
A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Patiala awarded life sentences to three hijackers of the Indian Airlines flight IC-814 to Kandahar in Afghanistan on December 24, 1999. Judge Inderjit Singh Walia sentenced the three, Abdul Latif, Dalip Kumar and Yusuf Nepali, on charges of murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping and wrongful confinement of passengers, forging documents.
16-Jan-2008
The police in Ludhiana arrested Mohammed Ali alias Alia for allegedly supplying RDX to the proscribed BKI militants to disrupt Punjab.
10-Jan-2008
The DGP in Punjab, N. P. S. Aulakh, said that Pakistan’s external intelligence agency, the ISI, is behind the regrouping of Babbar Khalsa militant group in Punjab. He claimed that Babbar Khalsa engineered the Ludhiana bomb blast in October 2007 and had planned the elimination of the Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmit Ram Rahim Singh, Baba Bhaniarewala and certain other heads of religious sects operating in Punjab. The DGP further said that Babbar Khalsa operatives arrested by Ludhiana police have revealed that they got arms training in Pakistan. He said that the police has identified a new terrorist group in the name of the International Liberation Revolutionary Force (ILRF) working in the Malwa region and arrested all the six persons behind the formation of this outfit along with one AK 47 rifle and other weapons.
04-Jan-2008
The Delhi Police claimed to have foiled an attempt to kill Baba Pyara Singh Paniharewala, a Ropar-based religious leader, with the arrest of four alleged BKI terrorists. On the hit list of the terrorists were four other prominent personalities of Punjab, the police said. Four pistols and 124 live cartridges were allegedly seized from their possession.
25-Dec-2007
Three suspected Babar Khalsa militants were arrested from Bihar on the India-Nepal border for their alleged role in the October 2007 bomb blast in Ludhiana that claimed six lives. Two of the three were identified as Gurpreet Singh and Sandeep and were arrested while they were attempting to flee into Nepal, official sources said.
22-Dec-2007
The BKI threatened to blow up vital installations and security establishments in the State. The BKI ‘regional commander (North East)’ Balwinder Singh in an e-mail statement sent to a local English daily stated, "By the end of this month (December), we are going to explode (blast) bombs in Shillong city to take revenge on Khasi Students’ Union for committing atrocities on Punjabis residing in Sweepers Colony (Punjabi Colony) in Lewduh in previous years and for India's oppression on us."