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General Forum: Current 'Affairs' | | Is terrorism reviving in Punjab?- another Dangerous Trend indeed. | |
| The decision by the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee - the religious parliament of Sikhs - to build a memorial to those killed in the Indian Army's assault on the Golden Temple in 1984 has revived painful memories of Punjab's brush with terrorism in the 1980's and 90's.
Indian troops stormed the Golden Temple, the holiest Sikh shrine, in Amritsar in June 1984 to flush out Sikh militants led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Besides militants, many innocents too died in the military operation.
The week is observed as "Ghallughara week" in Punjab to highlight the killings that took place.
Just a couple of days before the 21st anniversary of the attack, the SGPC announced its plan to have a memorial for those killed in the "Operation Bluestar".
The announcement would not go down well with authorities as they know that the memorial would be more to terrorists than innocent civilians who were killed in the offensive.
Soon after the SGPC announcement, the Damdami Taksal - a Sikh religious organisation once headed by Bhindranwale - declared finally that Bhindranwale, a man who once held sway in Punjab, was indeed dead.
The acknowledgement came 21 years after Bhindranwale was actually killed in Operation Bluestar on June 6, 1984.
All along, the Taksal had maintained that Bhindranwale was "alive" and did not let anyone occupy his seat in the organisation.
Coupled with this was the bomb blasts in two New Delhi cinema halls during the screening of Hindi movie "Jo Bole So Nihal" on May 22 that killed one person and left 60 injured.
The police nabbed three suspects this week for the blasts, two of them from the once dreaded Babbar Khalsa International, a Sikh terrorist organisation.
Though Sikh terrorism was snuffed out in 1993, attempts to revive it have been made from time to time.
In January last year, three top Babbar Khalsa terrorists involved in the conspiracy of assassination of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh escaped from the high security Burail jail complex in Chandigarh.
They were believed to have crossed into a neighbouring country after escaping through a 108-foot-long tunnel dug from their high security barrack.
Nearly half a dozen senior Punjab and Chandigarh police officials who investigated the jailbreak and arrested one of its masterminds - Narain Singh Chaura - are now facing life threats.
Chaura, who was let off by a court last month, had alleged that these officers had tortured him while in custody.
The Punjab and Chandigarh police were beefing up security of these officers and their families in view of the latest threats.
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Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee is trying to strengthen its hold on Sikh Population. Intelligence has been beefed up around it now.
Posted by: Mr. Vachaspathi V At: 3, Jun 2005 5:31:01 PM IST
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