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K.P.S. Gill's post mortem of the Khalistan movement
The transformation of an indigenous uprising in Punjab during the 80's into a proxy war was very much the model repeated in Kashmir in the 90's. However the training and deployment of Jihadis for Kashmir had far greater consequences than training a bunch of angry Sikhs.  With the arrest of Jagtar Singh Hawara, the Babbar Khalsa International's (BKI) 'operations chief' in India, on June 8, 2005, the curtain has rolled down on another chapter of the long saga of Pakistan's failed attempts to revive Khalistani terrorism in Punjab. Hawara fell quickly into the net as the leader of the circle of conspirators who engineered the Delhi Cinema Hall Blasts on May 22, 2005. The rapidity with which this 'terrorist module' unravelled is an important index of the state of the Khalistani movement and of what was once the most feared terrorist organisation in the Punjab. The disruption of a single cell would ordinarily not be expected to lead to the arrest of the 'operations chief' of a group such as the BKI - one of the first groups to take to terrorism in the Punjab in the end-Nineteen Seventies, and regarded as the most ideologically driven and violent organisation among the proliferation of gangs that overran Punjab through the Eighties and early Nineties. The operational leadership is normally insulated by significant layers and 'circuit breakers', so that the arrest of one of the 'foot soldiers' cannot lead beyond the immediate cell. Hawara, who had evaded arrest since his sensational escape from the Burail Jail in Chandigarh on January 21, 2004, clearly lacked the organisational depth that could isolate him from the bottom rung of what are evidently mercenary and most unreliable operatives. It is significant that none of the other conspirators in the present case fit the profile of the traditional and deeply conservative BKI activist. Two are Hindus, and the others have an evident taste for the 'good life' and a hankering to go abroad - legally or otherwise. That Hawara was in direct contact with, and exposed to, the likes of these indicates the degree to which the ideologically motivated Khalistani recruitment base has simply vanished from Punjab. This is despite frenetic efforts by Pakistan to keep the 'defeated rump of Khalistani terrorist organisations', (as I have described them elsewhere) alive; and despite significant flows of funding, support and propaganda from minuscule and increasingly isolated groups among Non Resident Indian (NRI) Sikhs. While Hawara and Jaspal Singh 'masterminded' the operation in India, they were functioning under the direct control of Wadhawa Singh, the BKI 'chief', who continues to enjoy Pakistani hospitality ever since he fled the fighting in Punjab in the late 1980s. The group was coordinated through Satnam Singh Satta Mallian, Wadhawa Singh's son-in-law, propped up by his Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) handlers, who is currently taking advantage of the laxity of German law in Stuttgart, to manage the movement and operations of BKI cadres, who have a presence in several European countries, including Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Norway and the United Kingdom. BKI is also active in Canada and USA. It is on the list of terrorist organisations in both the US and UK. Posted by: Paul Moloney 2005-06-15 |
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