A land-lord farmer protest and how SJF used it to disrupt national unity

New Delhi, Jan 28: The original intention was to hoist a Khalistan flag at the Red Fort on January 26.

The SJF had planned on instigating the farmers to turn violent and a high-level meeting in the first week of January had discussed the same. It was easier to instigate them as there are land-lord farmers at the protest site.

Intelligence Bureau officials tell OneIndia that the proscribed organisation SJF had been looking to infiltrate the farmers' protests for long and over USD 1 lakh dollars had been collected in the name of the farmer protests.

An ANI report said that a meeting was held in which 8 top Delhi Police officials and 12 officers from the IB apart from officials of the R&AW, SPG and Haryana Police had attended the meeting ahead of the Republic Day celebrations.

The Intelligence suggested that the SJF was also planning widespread violence and also wanted to compromise the Red Fort building. It wanted the entire process to begin with the hoisting of the Khalistan Flag, an IB source told OneIndia.

The SJF has been arranging protests in front of Indian nations abroad. The NIA however took over the probe into the funding after the foreign nations such as Canada did not act against the protests. The NIA after a recent amendment has foreign jurisdiction and hence was handed over the probe.

Investigations have found that funds have been coming in from Canada, US and UK. The official cited above said that this money is being collected by the SJF in the name of the protests. However not all is going towards the protests. A good part of it is being diverted towards subversive and propaganda activities of the SJF.

The violent scenes witnessed in Delhi on January 26 came in the way of Intelligence reports stating that the Pakistan based Khalistan groups are being pushed by their handlers to exploit the agitation in a bid to revive militancy in Punjab.

A day before the tractor parade, the Intelligence Bureau had declared a high state of alert in Delhi. The Intelligence Bureau had warned that pro-Khalistan elements backed by Pakistan's ISI would look to hijack the protests and disrupt peace in Delhi.

On Monday, the Delhi Police said that over 300 Twitter handles had been traced to Pakistan that were created to sabotage the rally. The proscribed outfit, Sikhs for Justice has been threatening strikes and has even tried to influence the farmers' protest on several occasions.

Both the IB as well as the Delhi Police had warned that the pro-Khalistan groups will look to disrupt peace. A close watch is being kept especially on the social media, where attempts would be made to spread false news and instigate the people.

"Over 300 Twitter handles have been generated from Pakistan during January 13 to 18 to disrupt the tractor rally by farmers only by misleading people. There are inputs about the same from different agencies too. It will be a challenging task for us, but the rally will be conducted amid tight security after the Republic Day parade is over," Deependra Pathak, Special Commissioner of Police (Intelligence), said.