Police study pattern to join dots

Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 16

As many as 47 alleged terrorists, mostly new recruits, belonging to eight terror modules have been arrested in the past seven months in the state. The police claim that Pakistan-based Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) were trying to revive terrorism in the state.

As per a police analytical report, all modules had common elements and pattern. Youths, mostly unemployed and belonging to lower middle class were radicalised by offering them handsome compensation and foreign settlement, besides influencing them with emotive stories of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and police torture on Khalistanis.

All alleged terrorists have been accused of being in contact with Khalistan sympathisers on social media and propagating their ideology.

Each module had a handler based in Canada, UK, France, Italy, Belgium or Germany, who funded the modules and provided logistic support. More than 20 such handlers have been identified so far. But not much action is possible against them on the foreign soil. Pakistan-based Harpreet Singh alias Happy PhD (nicknamed due to his expertise in computers) of the KLF and Lakhbir Singh Rode of the International Sikh Youth Federation were the main conspirators.

The police analysis says the conspiracy to roll out such regular modules and target leaders of different communities started in early 2015 and resulted in six killings and two failed attempts.

The report says the eighth module led by Jagtar Singh Johal of the UK busted last week was the most dangerous. “It remained in action for the longest duration and was the most determined effort of Happy and Rode and the ISI,” said a senior police official.

He said the police failed their designs to revive terrorism and thanked the state residents who did not react adversely to the killings.

Lawyers and some political leaders, however, fear that the large-scale arrests are an indication of police raj where youths were being branded as terrorists for merely expressing their opinion on the social media or following Khalistan sympathisers.

“Where is the evidence against them? Is the police probe transparent?” asks Jaspal Singh Manjhpur, a lawyer who is representing Johal, besides other alleged terrorists and Sikh detainees in different jails of the state.

“It is no crime to read and share stories of 1984 riots on the social media. It is also no crime to express your dissatisfaction with an organisaiton hurting your religious sentiments. The weapons were planted on them. Have the police ever booked any RSS leader for giving controversial statements,” he asks. The arrests have stirred emotions in the UK where a campaign for Johal’s release is on.

While the Akali Dal is silent on the issue, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has taken up the matter through Kharar MLA and NRI wing incharge Kanwar Sandhu.

AAP leaders were earlier accused of meeting Khalistan sympathisers during the Assembly elections. Sandhu says: “We are not supporting violence. We are saying the rule of law should be followed. There is no transparency in police functioning. Why are they not making the evidence against Johal or others public? We would have raised similar questions if a non-Sikh innocent person was branded terrorist like this,” he said.