Military

[Sikh Terrorists]
Babbar Khalsa
International Sikh Youth Federation
Dal Khalsa
Bhinderanwala Tiger Force
Saheed Khalsa Force
Khalistan Liberation Tiger Force
Khalistan Commando Force
Khalistan Liberation Front
Khalistan National Army

On October 7, 1987, the Sikh Nation declared its independence from India, naming its new country Khalistan, meaning “the land of the pure”.

The attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, in June 1984 centered on the fight of the Sikh separatists for an independent Punjab, renamed as Khalistan. The Indian army's 1984 storming of the Golden Temple, the Sikh religion's holiest shrine, outraged Sikhs worldwide. Sikh religious militants bombed and downed an Air India Boeing 747 off the coast of Ireland in 1985, killing 329 people in the deadliest aviation sabotage in history. The attack was thought to be the work of Sikh militants based in Vancouver, in revenge for the Golden Temple incident.

The events of Amritsar were the fault of both the Sikhs and the Indian government. Not only did a small minority of Sikhs cause havoc for all Sikhs, but also much of the violence was due to the incompetence of India's government and police. However, in order to understand the complexities of what occurred, it is important to know that the Sikhs cannot be simplistically perceived as militants, making demands out of greed and committing violence for the sake of violence. Their struggle grows from a quest for ethnic identity, a desire for religious purity (i.e., the fear of being absorbed by the majority Hindus), and the desire for nationhood. They are a proud and achieving people who feel unequally yoked with the Hindus.

The June 1984 attack on the Golden Temple by the Indian government occurred simultaneously with attacks on 37 other Gurdwaras in what came to be known as Operation Bluestar. Operation Bluestar took the lives of over 20,000 Sikhs in Punjab.

The Golden Temple attack was a brutal chapter in India's repression of the Sikhs, according to Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh, President of the Council of Khalistan, the government pro tempore of Khalistan, which leads the struggle for Khalistan's independence. ``Sikhs cannot forgive or forget this atrocity against the seat of our religion by the Indian government, said Dr. Aulakh ``This brutal attack clarified that there is no place in India for Sikhs,'' he said.

``Sant Bhindranwale said that attacking the Golden Temple would lay the foundation stone of Khalistan, and he was right,'' said Dr. Aulakh. ``Instead of crushing the Sikh movement for Khalistan, as India intended, the attack strengthened it,'' he said. ``The flame of freedom still burns bright in the hearts of Sikhs despite the deployment of over half a million Indian troops to crush it,'' he said.

The Arya Samaj, a Hindu reformist organization, attempted to subsume Sikhism in Hinduism in the 1870s. The Sikhs responded by forming the Singh Sabha to emphasize Sikhs’ separate identity. Khalistan, the Sikh homeland in Punjab Provice, declared its independence on October 7, 1987. Over 60 percent of India's grain comes from Punjab, and there were a half-million Indian soldiers occupying the province of Punjab.

Description

Nearly 80 percent of the population is Hindu (nearly one billion adherents); more than 14 percent is Muslim (roughly 172 million adherents, the third largest Muslim population in the world); 2.3 percent is Christian (over 25 million adherents); 1.7 percent is Sikh (20 million adherents). . Sikh communities, who have long pursued justice for the 1984 violence or advocated for Sikhism to be recognized as separate from Hinduism, also have been targeted by the Indian government for years.

Article 25 of India’s constitution states that “Hindus shall be construed as including a reference to persons professing the Sikh, Jain or Buddhist religion, and the reference to Hindu religious institutions shall be construed accordingly.” The lack of recognition of Sikhism, Jainism, and Buddhism as distinct religions subjects members of these faiths to Hindu Personal Status Laws. Since members of these groups are considered Hindus, they are forced to register their marriages, inherit their properties, and adopt children by classifying themselves as Hindus. Additionally, since they are considered Hindu by law, they are denied access to social services or employment and educational preferences available to other religious minority communities.

In 1984, the All India Sikh Students’ Federation (AISSF) in the United Kingdom started the International Sikh Youth Federation [ISYF] as an international branch. It was started by Pargat Singh under the patronage of Jasbir Singh Rode. Rode had arrived in the United Kingdom in August 1984 but, by December 1984, was expelled for publicly advocating violent methods for their separatism campaign. Rode returned to India, where he was imprisoned without trial until 1988. Upon his release, he moderated, now advocating pursuing constitutional changes within India. This created a riff in the UK branches roughly along north/south lines: the northern branches followed Rode’s moderate stance while the southern branches instead followed Dr. Sohan Singh. Since then, ISYF members have engaged in terrorist attacks, assassinations, and bombings against both Indian figures and moderate Sikhs opposing them. The organizations has also collaborated and associated with other Sikh terrorist organizations, including Babbar Khalsa, the Khalistan Liberation Force, and Khalistan Commando Force.

The country has experienced periodic outbreaks of large-scale communal violence against religious minorities. . The 1984 anti-Sikhs riots resulted in deaths of more than 3,000 Sikhs. India established special structures, such as Fast-Track Courts, Special Investigative Teams (SITs), and independent commissions, to investigate and adjudicate crimes stemming from these incidents. However, their impact has been hindered by limited capacity, an antiquated judiciary, inconsistent use, political corruption, and religious bias,

Sikhs often are harassed and pressured to reject religious practices and beliefs that are distinct to Sikhism, such as wearing Sikh dress and unshorn hair, and carrying religious items, including the kirpan. The Sikh community also reports that the Indian government ignores their religious freedom concerns by targeting Sikhs under the country’s sedition law regardless of whether they in fact support the Khalistan movement (a political movement seeking full legal recognition of Sikhism and a Sikh state in the Punjab). For example, in October 2015, Sikhs protested in Chandigarh, Punjab state after pages from the Sikh Holy Scripture (Guru Granth Sahib) were found desecrated. Police officers opened fire at the unarmed protestors, killing two and injuring 70 others, and several Sikh protesters were arrested under the sedition law.

India's National Investigation Agency (NIA), on 20 September 2023, revealed details of 43 people associated with a terror-gangster network having links to Canada, amid strained diplomatic ties between the two countries. NIA issued pictures of Lawrence Bishnoi, Jasdeep Singh, Kala Jatheri alias Sandeep, Virender Pratap alias Kala Rana and Joginder Singh. The agency also unveiled that the majority of these "gangsters" were based out of Canada. Activities

The militants posed a long-term terrorist threat that proved impossible for New Delhi to stamp out. Indian security officials believed that as of 1987 at least 200 Sikh militants were active in Punjab. These militants refuse to compromise on their demand for an independent Sikh state. Despite their limited numbers, the militants enjoyed widespread support and political influence throughout Punjab. Contributions from Sikh temples, profits from narcotics trafficking, and remittances from pro-militant overseas Sikhs ensured enough financial support to enable the militants to continue terrorist activity.

Sikh terrorism is sponsored by expatriate and Indian Sikh groups who want to carve out an independent Sikh state called Khalistan (Land of the Pure) from Indian terroritory. Active groups include Babbar Khalsa, International Sikh Youth Federation, Dal Khalsa, Bhinderanwala Tiger Force. A previously unknown group, the Saheed Khalsa Force, claimed credit for the marketplace bombings in New Delhi in 1997. Previously active groups included the Azad Khalistan Babbar Khalsa Force, Khalistan Liberation Front, and Khalistan Commando Force. Many of these groups operate under umbrella organizations, the most significant of which is the Second Panthic Committee. Sikh terrorists primarily attack Indian officials and facilities, other Sikhs, and Hindus using bombing, assassination, and kidnapping. Their area of operations includes Northern India and Southeast Asia. International organizations, such as the World Sikh Organization, lobby for their cause.

The religious nature of the conflict in Punjab can be gauged from the targeted killing of Hindus, though the militants soon started targeting those Sikhs who did not share their hardline views and who advised moderation. Militants belonging to the Khalistan Commando Force, Babbar Khalsa, and other militant groups that were fighting for prevention of the dilution of the Sikh faith, believed that the religion could only be saved by Sikhs attaining a state of their own.

Sikh attacks in India are mounted against Indian officials and facilities, other Sikhs, and Hindus; they include assassinations, bombings, and kidnappings. These attacks have dropped markedly since 1992, as Indian security forces have killed or captured a host of senior Sikh militant leaders and scored other successes against militant groups. Total civilian deaths in Punjab have declined more than 95 percent since more than 3,300 civilians died in 1991. The drop resulted largely from Indian Army, paramilitary, and police successes against militant groups.

On December 20, 2006 a federal jury in Brooklyn, New York, today returned a verdict convicting KHALID AWAN of providing money and financial services to the Khalistan Commando Force (“KCF”), a terrorist organization responsible for thousands of deaths in India since its founding in 1986. When sentenced by United States District Judge Charles P. Sifton on March 7, 2007, Awan faced a maximum sentence of 45 years’ incarceration.

KCF was formed in 1986 and is comprised of Sikh militants who seek to establish a separate Sikh state in the Punjab region of India. The organization has engaged in numerous assassinations of prominent Indian government officials -- including the murder of Chief Minister Beant Singh of Punjab in 1995 -- and hundreds of bombings, acts of sabotage, and kidnapings.

The United States Attorney’s Office and the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force began the investigation in 2003 after an inmate at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where AWAN was incarcerated on federal credit card fraud charges, reported that AWAN boasted of his relationship with Paramjit Singh Panjwar, the leader of the KCF and one of the ten most wanted fugitives in India.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is an organization that aims to strengthen the Hindu community by spreading the ideology of Hindutva. The RSS draws its inspiration from European fascist movements and groups such as the Italian Fascist Party. The RSS promotes an ideal of upholding an Indian culture and its civilizational values.

The RSS treats Sikhs as part of a Hindu nation, like Jains and Buddhists, and unlike Christians and Muslims. Sikhs oppose this idea and believe their history is not about fighting Muslims. The Akal Takht, the highest temporal seat of Sikhism, called for a ban on the RSS. The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) passed a resolution condemning the RSS and its mission to make India a Hindu Rashtra. The SGPC perceives the RSS as a threat to all minorities.

Harmeet Singh, alias 'Happy PhD', was allegedly involved in the murders of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leaders and followers of Dera Sacha Sauda in Punjab in 2016-2017. He had donned the role of the 8th chief of Khalistan Liberation Force after the outfit’s head, Harminder Mintoo, was arrested by the Punjab Police from Thailand in 2014. Harmeet Singh was gunned down in Pakistan's Lahore 27 January 2020), supposedly by a local gang over financial disputes related to drug smuggling,

Paramjit Singh Panjwar was shot dead in Lahore, Pakistan in early May 2023. Panjwar was the chief of the terror outfit Khalistan Commando Force. The third Khalistani activist to die recently was the self-styled chief of the Khalistan Liberation Force, Avtar Singh Khanda. He died on June 15 at a hospital in Birmingham, UK. While his supporters claim that he was poisoned, reports suggest he had been suffering from blood cancer.

Hardeep Singh Nijjarr -- a vocal supporter of the Khalistan movement that advocates for a separate Sikh homeland in the Punjab -- was gunned down 18 June 2023 by two masked men in the parking lot of Surrey's Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara, where he was president. Nijjar had asked Canadian authorities whether he should wear a bulletproof vest in the weeks before he was gunned down. Nijjar was the third high-profile Khalistani activist based abroad to die in a span of 45 days. Nijjar himself claimed that he was on a “hit list” and that there was a “pattern” in the killings of Khalistani activists.

Nijjar, who hailed from the Bharsinghpur village in Jalandhar, Punjab, moved from Punjab to Canada in 1997 and worked as a plumber. Not much is known about his direct association with any of the militant outfits in Punjab but he rose to prominence after landing in Canada. Nijjar was a supporter of the creation of a separate Sikh homeland, known as Khalistan, and was associated with several Khalistani outfits in Canada, like the Babbar Khalsa International (BKI), and later became the head of Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF). He was the president of the Surrey Gurdwara body since 2020. Nijjarwas one of the most wanted terrorists in India. He was reportedly a key functionary in the Khalistani network across the world, and was declared an “individual terrorist” in India under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) in July 2020.

According to the Indian government, Nijjar was involved in running and operating the KTF organisation, which included the training and financing of its members. Reports suggest that Nijjar travelled to Pakistan to meet KTF leader Jagtar Singh Tara and handlers in the Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence sometime in 2013-14 to gather support. Nijjar was also said to be close to Dal Khalsa leader Gajinder Singh, who was one of the prime accused in the hijacking case of an Indian Airlines flight in 1981. Singh is currently in Pakistan.

Nijjar was known to have organised several demonstrations outside Indian missions in the US, the UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, etc. under the banner of the banned outfit, Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), along with other pro-Khalistan leaders such as Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, Paramjit Singh Pamma, and Avtar Singh Khanda, who died in the UK in June this year.

Nijjar was accused of being involved in multiple cases of targeted killings in Punjab and funding secessionist activities in the region. In 2010, the Punjab Police filed a case against Niijar for his alleged role in the bomb blast near a temple in Patiala. UK-based Paramjit Singh Pamma, another wanted terrorist, was one of the main accused in the case. In 2015, another case was filed against Nijjar for his alleged role in "targeting Hindu leaders" and yet another case was lodged against him in 2016, pertaining to his alleged "involvement in the training and funding of Mandeep Dhaliwal and hatching a conspiracy to kill "Hindu leaders".

A Look Out Circular (LOC) and a Red Corner Notice (RCN) were also issued against the Nijjar in 2015 and 2016. In 2018, the NIA registered an FIR against Nijjar in Delhi. The FIR says he was conspiring and planning to carry out a major terrorist attack in India. It also claimed he was engaged in activities which were prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India, such as sourcing finance to procure arms/ammunition and training Sikh youth for carrying out terrorist activities in India.

In 2018, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) said it was probing Hardeep Singh Nijjar's involvement in the killing of RSS leaders in Punjab. The FIR mentioned that Nijjar had certain associates in India who had surveyed the gatherings of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) at certain places, including Punjab, intending to target them with terror attacks. His name also figured in the killing of Jalandhar-based senior RSS leader Brigadier Jagdish Gagneja in 2016. The case is under investigation.

According to the Indian government, Nijjar was wanted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on terror charges and anti-India activities. NIA reportedly filed a chargesheet in December 2020, where it said SFJ was floated under the garb of a human rights advocacy group with offices in countries such as the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, etc. NIA named SFJ as a frontal organisation of Khalistani terrorist outfits operating from foreign soil, including Pakistan. In December 2020, NIA named him in an FIR when farmers were protesting against the three farm laws in Delhi NCR.

Nijjar, along with Gurpatwant Singh Pannun and Paramjit Singh Pamma, were accused of conspiring to create an atmosphere of fear and lawlessness in India, causing disaffection among people, and inciting them to rise in rebellion against the Government of India. In 2022, NIA declared a Rs 10 lakh reward on Nijjar after he was accused of conspiring to kill a Hindu priest in Jalandhar.

In Canada, Nijjar was in the spotlight after the killing of Ripudaman Singh Malik, who was acquitted in the Air India Bombing of 1985. Malik was also shot dead in Surrey, on June 15, 2022. Nijjar and Malik were reportedly at loggerheads over the printing of the Sikh holy book, Sri Guru Granth Sahib, in Surrey – a violation of the edict issued by the Akal Takht, the highest seat of Sikh religious power.

Even a few hours before his killing, in his last speech, he spoke about how the Sikh community was under attack on foreign shores. “You see it has been just a month and look at the killings. We need to be vigilant. I am already on the enemy’s target,” he said in the interview, which has gone viral.

In response to the Indian Agricultural Acts of 2020, farmers across India began protesting since November 2020. Commonly referred to as the Indian Farmers’ Protests, this movement was the largest protest in modern Indian history. Sikh and Punjabi Americans across the world, including in dozens of American cities, also rallie in support of the farmers and their movement. The response of the Indian government had been particularly alarming. While the protests had been overwhelmingly peaceful,and had even served as sites for schooling, makeshift malls, and health clinics, they were met by force from Indian law enforcement. More than tw hunred farmers were reportedly killed during the protests.

Many low-intensity bombings that might be attributable to Sikh militants occur without claims of credit.

Strength

Unknown. Family influences solidified Khalistan-involved youth's attitude of differentiation from other Canadians. Personal identity interpretations led Khalistan-involved Sikh youth to develop and reinforce a sense of differentiation from other Canadians. Khalistan thus provided an important pivot of differentiation. participation in Khalistani movements was discovered to be a means for men to build a masculine Sikh identity in interaction with each other, women to build a general social identity based on interactions with each other, and men and women to interact with each other on the basis of collective socio-religious identity exploration and affirmation. Participation in Khalistani movements also came to be understood as a means of expression and differentiation for Sikhs.

Location/Area of Operation

Northern India, Western Europe, Southeast Asia, and North America.

External Aid

Silk militant cells are active internationally, and militants gather funds from overseas Sikh communities. Sikh expatriates have formed a variety of international organizations that lobby for the Sikh cause overseas. Most prominent are the World Sikh Organization and the International Sikh Youth Federation.

Khalistani militant groups, such as Babbar Khalsa International and the International Sikh Youth Federation, are suspected of raising funds for the Khalistan cause in a number of countries, particularly in countries that have large Sikh diaspora populations. There appears to be a global network but it is unclear how strong it is and the motivations surrounding the support. These groups used to have an extensive fundraising network in Canada, but it now appears to be fractured and diffuse.