KHALISTAN EXTREMISM MONITOR
A project of the Institute for Conflict Management
A project of the Institute for Conflict Management
US-based neo-Khalistan
terror group Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) has given a call for the assassination of
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal
Khattar and Home Minister of that State Anil Vij through a pre-recorded video clip.
The SFJ is a banned terror
group under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The video was recorded on
April 5 and released on Thursday. Through a separate Press statement issued on
Thursday from New York, the outfit has opposed G20 summits in Jammu &
Kashmir.
Besides being sheltered in
the US, the SFJ is also backed by Pakistan’s ISI and the latest exhortations
could be a bid to revive so-called Khalistan movement here in India following
the dismantling of the secessionist network with the arrest of a host of
alleged Khalistani leaders like Amritpal Singh and his cohorts,
counter-terrorism experts said.
The outfit also gave a call
to the Kashmiris to block the Srinagar airport to sensitise the delegates
through holding of G20 meeting in Srinagar.
The SFJ is a rootless
entity in terms of popular support and its leaders are spearheading the
so-called Khalistan movement for earning their livelihood from their masters in
the Pakistan Army and the notorious spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI), analysts said.
The Centre is hosting the
G20 tourism working group meeting under India’s presidency between May 22 and
24.
The SFJ is headed by
Gurpatwant Singh Pannun who is facing several cases on terrorism charges but is
living freely in the US without any action from the law enforcement agencies
there despite the American Government claiming to fight terrorism worldwide.
The US preaches Pakistan
and other countries to rein in terror groups but is itself harbouring such
groups. American server service provider Cloudflare Inc is known to host the
websites of several UN-banned terror groups like the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and
Jaish-e-Mohammad on the one hand and the ISI on the other, the analysts said.
The SFJ has also launched a
dedicated email site for the Kashmiris to send emails urging the G20
ambassadors to “Boycott Kashmir Summit” and “Save Kashmiri Pundits”.
The Save Kashmiri Pundits”
could be a ploy to target them through the Pakistani terror cohorts during the
G20 summit and run a propaganda overdrive against the Government, the analysts
said.
In its bid to scare the
member countries of the grouping, the SFJ has also written a letter to G20
countries with the dubious claim that the agencies here can orchestrate violent
incidents in Jammu and Kashmir.
In its letter to the G20
countries, the SJF dubbed the abrogation of Article 370 as “annexation by the
Modi Government. The Pakistan Government has also opposed the abrogation of the
special provision to justify its low intensity conflict in Jammu and Kashmir.