Build-up: Cops on high alert

Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 23

The security agencies in the state are on tenterhooks over the building up of tension between the Rashtriya Sikh Sangat and Sikh hardliners.

It is feared that in the backdrop of the recent targeted killings of RSS leaders in Punjab and the failure of the police to nab the culprits, any confrontation can lead to communal trouble.

A senior police officer said: “We are monitoring the situation. We are also keeping an eye on social media and agencies based in foreign countries who can cause trouble in the wake of this confrontation.”

Already a number of Sikh groups, including Dal Khalsa, Akhand Kirtani Jatha, Khalsa Panchayat, Kendri Sri Guru Singh Sabha, Voice of Khalsa among others, have called for a boycott of the outfit’s samagam.

They term it “direct intervention” by the RSS in Sikh affairs. The police claim that this charge has been doing the rounds for long and is responsible for attacks on leaders of both Rashtriya Sikh Sangat and the RSS.

In 2009, Rulda Singh, chief of Punjab unit of the Rahstriya Sikh Sangat was gunned down. In the last two years, two RSS leaders were killed, while three of other Hindu outfits were attacked. The police believe that Sikh terror groups and the Pakistan-based ISI were behind the killings which were being funded or backed by Sikh groups in Canada, Italy and Germany.

Police officials say they are on alert as any activity by the RSS related to the Sikh affairs is being viewed with suspicion by the Sikh groups.

The counter intelligence wing has already busted about half a dozen fresh modules of terror groups in Punjab.

Communal tension

It is feared that in the backdrop of the recent targeted killings of RSS leaders and the failure of the police to nab the culprits, any confrontation can lead to communal trouble.