No merger of Punjab dists with Jammu, warns AISSF

Days after Omar Abdullah Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, announced that the BJP-led Central Government is likely to carve out a separate state of Jammu from Jammu and Kashmir as it had earlier done with Ladakh, Sikh organisations have warned that speculations are already rife that the government may take away some areas out of Pathankot, a district of Punjab, bordering the hill state, to merge with Jammu.

All India Sikh Students Federation (AISSF) leaders Sarbjit Singh Jammu, Gurkripal Singh and Jeet Singh Ludhiana, in a joint statement released here on Sunday, stated that if the Central Government wants to make Jammu a separate state, they do not have any problems, but it should not intend to snatch any area of Punjab for merger with the proposed state.

They warned that if this happens, it will be very dangerous for the country and they appealed to all the political parties of Punjab to understand this move of the Centre to come together to stop further division.

They said earlier during the country's Partition, more than half of Punjab was given to Pakistan. Then PEPSU was dissolved, and later, on the pretext of creating a Punjabi Suba, Haryana and Himachal were removed. All these moves made Punjab a small state. The statement made by the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, that "the Central Government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is going to split

Jammu and Kashmir" has given more strength to speculations that some areas of Pathankot and Gurdaspur in Punjab are being planned to be included in the newly created state.

They said the Union Government had already caused a flight of industry from Punjab to the adjoining mountainous states due to lopsided policies.