It is back: How ISI’s Khalistan force is churning the communal cauldron of terror in Punjab

Amritsar, Nov 19: On Sunday, three persons were killed in an act of terror here after a grenade was lobbed on a religious congregation. The police said after the incident that they were treating this as an act of terror.

The incident took place inside the Nirankari Bhavan at Adliwal village near Amritsar's Rajasani. The two men, one of them with a flowing beard forced their way into the hall by brandishing a pistol. They detained the sewadar, lobbed the grenade into the prayer room and fled on a motorcycle.

It appears to be an act of terror carried out by the Khalistan groups with the support of terrorists from Kashmir and the ISI, an Intelligence Bureau official tells OneIndia. This could well be part of the big plan to revive terrorism in Punjab. Such attempts are being made for long and in recent times, we have witnessed various instances, where the revival of the Khalistan movement has been attempted, the official also said.

Writing on the wall:

Punjab has been buzzing with activity for the past two years now. Nearly 15 modules have been busted in the past 18 months. This year also witnessed the declaration called the Referendum 2020, which promised to liberate Punjab from government rule.

In addition to this, the ISI has sent in several Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists into Punjab, with the brief to activate terror modules. This is a clear attempt to help the revival of the Khalistan movement, officials also say.

In all the modules that have been busted, it became clear that there was an ISI link. All of them were in some way or the other linked to Kashmiris. In this regard the police had also arrested Kashmiri students from Jalandhar.

After the Punjab Police led by K P S Gill had wiped out terrorism from Punjab, all the top leaders of the Khalistan groups had fled to Pakistan. They were sheltered and trained by the ISI. IB officials have been saying for long that the ISI was waiting for the right time to launch these persons into India.

While the terrorists trained in Pakistan, their sympathisers ran campaigns in other countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada and Italy. The idea was to build up a narrative and also collect funds to sponsor the movement. Recently many sympathisers of the Khalistan movement led by a group called Sikhs for Justice held the London declaration of Referendum 2020. This was yet another attempt to build up the narrative for a separate Khalistan state.

Churning the communal cauldron:

The National Investigation is seized off a probe involving the killing of several Hindu leaders in Punjab. The NIA probe revealed that the plan was hatched in Pakistan, while the funds came in from Canada, UK and Italy.

In Punjab there have been such murders galore and the year 2017 has seen five such incidents. In 2016, there were two such incidents. The NIA probe into these incidents suggest that the mastermind is a person called Gursharanbir Singh who is a British national. He is the one who roped in Ramandeep and Hardeep Singh and directed them to kill Hindu leaders.

The handlers who directed the killing of RSS and other Hindu leaders have been traced to Italy, Canada and the United Kingdom. The Punjab police which is probing the case learnt that there is a systematic approach that has been followed to eliminate Hindu leaders by ISI agents. The motive behind the killings is to destabilise the state, the police say.

The ISI wants to cause communal tension in Punjab. Once the state becomes volatile then it could be used as a platform to launch the Khalistan forces, the police also said. The police got information about the modus operandi following three very high profile arrests.

The Italian connection: Recently the NIA took over the probe into the killing of two persons-Satpal Sharma and his son Ramesh Kumar at Ludhiana. An NIA officer explained to OneIndia that the during the investigation it was found that killings of Satpal Sharma, his son Ramesh Sharma and Durga Gupta were part of trans-national conspiracy hatched by senior leadership of the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF).

Eight incidents of such killings were executed as part of this conspiracy between January, 2016 and October, 2017 in Punjab. The objective of the conspiracy was to destabilize the law and order situation in Punjab and to revive the fledgling terrorism in the state.

It was found that the conspiracy had its foot-prints in several countries including, Pakistan, UK, Australia, France, Italy and UAE. As part of the conspiracy, large amounts of funds were supplied through Italy, Australia and the UK to the perpetrators of the Killings/ Attempted Killings, viz. Hardeep Singh and Ramandeep Singh.

These funds were used by them to purchase weapons for executing the killings and other logistics. The conspiracy included recruitment and training of Hardeep Singh and Ramandeep Singh in Italy, Dubai and UAE.

Accused Hardeep Singh is a permanent resident of Italy while accused Ramandeep Singh belongs to Ludhiana. Both these persons were trained by one Gursharanbir Singh, a UK national. Another UK national, Jagtar Singh Johal, who has been arrested in the case was involved in the funding of the conspiracy. Day to day co-ordination of the conspiracy was done by Pakistan based Harmeet Singh @ PhD.