Punjab militancy: There have been 12,000 civilian deaths

New Delhi, July 27: The fear of terrorism in the state of Punjab returned today with the attack at Gurdaspur. It is still very unclear what the motive of the attack is and who could be behind it, but for the people of Punjab it brings back nightmares.

The state which had seen extreme militancy in the 1980s has coped with death and fear for long before the Punjab Police and the Indian army wiped the militants out.

The demand for a separate country called Khalistan was extremely brutal and there have been 12,000 deaths in Punjab due to militancy.

The death toll in Punjab:

In the Gurdaspur attack, there have been 6 persons who have been killed. Terrorism at its peak in Punjab had seen a series of attacks which had resulted in the death of 12,000 people. These are statistics available since the year 1981. All the deaths were a result of attacks by militants in Punjab.

Although the Punjab militancy had a policy of not targeting civilians, there were numerous instances where the common man had been targeted.

Since 1981 the death toll has been 12,000. However the fight back by the Indian security forces was strong. Statistics would reveal that around 8,100 terrorists were killed by security forces. This assault had literally wiped out terrorism from Punjab.

However some of the top leaders of these groups began fleeing to Pakistan in the early 1990s and took shelter with the help of the ISI. The militancy was completely beaten down, but the top leaders with the help of the ISI spent almost two decades making attempts to revive militancy in Punjab.

Since 2007 there have been reports and alerts which suggested the revival of Punjab militancy. The militants managed to carry out a major blast at a theatre in Ludhiana.

There was also an attempt that was made to smuggle in a huge cache of arms. However the major arms haul was busted at Ambala.

OneIndia News