Bhubaneswar: When the country’s top security agency chiefs are mulling over the myriad of security threats the country is squared off with, in the State Capital, the cool-cloudy morning in Bhubaneswar turned sensationally hotter when content of the threat mail purportedly from SFJ leader, designated as terrorist, Gurpatwant Singh Panun to senior journalist Akashay Sahoo, Odisha correspondent of The Asian Age, was unravelled.
As per the threat mail details released by the senior scribe, the mail starts with a derogatory remark on PM Narendra Modi and then a direct warning message of D-Day 1/12/2024 followed by Odisha Do Not Fly to and Fro From Biju Patnaik Airport.
The warning message is followed with a website ID https://www.News18West.com/ (view the image below).
However, the sentences that immediately follow the website link address have been an eye opener.
Significantly, 48 hours prior to this threat mail, a purported video threat message of Pannun, the leader of the banned Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) organisation, was released where he is seen calling upon his supporters to “disguise and take cover in temples and hotels in Bhubaneswar to disrupt the DG-IG conference.” In the video message, he is heard inciting other extremist groups, including Naxals, Maoists, and Kashmiri fighters, to infiltrate the city and carry out acts of disruption.
VIDEO MESSAGE, THREAT MAIL COMMON THREAD
As per the details divulged by Senior Journalist Akshay Sahoo, the threat mail has an attachment that carries an audio message purportedly of Gurupatwant Singh Panun. But what that strikes curiosity is the audio that had come up with an Odia thumbnail.
While the first video purportedly released by SFJ leader is a sort of message of exhort to the anti-national elements like Naxals/Maoists and Kashimri terrorist organisations to disrupt the country’s top cop conference attended by PM Narendra Modi, HM Amit Shah and NSA Ajit Doval, the threat mail of today talks about a deliverance message to the public at large (stoking fear).
Moreover, the threat mail also has a component that announces a 25 lakh reward for one who raises Khalistani Flag in Bhubaneswar.
The common thread in both the messages puts the spotlight on the exhortation to maoist cadres by the Khalistani sphere header.
KHALISTANI MOVEMENT FLASHBACK
The Khalistan movement was first seeded in the 1940s during British rule, when a call was given for establishing a separate nation for Sikhs. After India attained independence and Punjab was partitioned, its leaders demanded a special status for the state. But Central Government did not pay any heeds to these demands.
Then came the era of Green Revolution to Punjab in 1960s. Popular discourse emerged in two phases in response to the so called rise of capitalism and affluence.
- Radical Marxism inspired the first phase, as rural Sikh students having higher education came in contact with Marxist ideas.
- From mid-1960s to mid-1970s, Punjab saw the emergence of the Maoist Naxalite Movement.
- The Naxalite movement was suppressed in the mid-1970s, but it remained intact through its intellectual and political legacy.
- What followed the radical Naxalite movement was a RELIGIOUS REVIVALIST movement, filling in the political vacuum left by the former.
- The movement started when, in response to the increased commercialization of agriculture, an approach of a simple Sikh ethical way of life found an audience among the rural Sikh population.
- Many individuals and organizations contributed to the Sikh revivalist movement.
- Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale emerged as a charismatic leader after becoming the head of Damdami Taksal on August 25, 1977.
The flashback on Khalistani movement shows while Khalistani movement is a religious revivalist one, the maoists thrive on no-religion policy.
KHALISTANI – MAOIST NEXUS?
Speaking on the topic, a senior IPS officer of ADG rank in Odisha said, “Country’s security agencies have come across inputs and evidences where the Khalistani forces were seen in cahoots with the Islamist terrorists and naxals.”
THE EVIDENCES
- In 2022, security forces had launched Operation 'Double Bull' against Maoists in the Latehar-Lohardaga inner forests of Jharkhand.
- During the operation, security forces nabbed 3 sub-zonal commanders and one area commander, who spilled the beans before the police.
- For the first time, Maoist having links with the banned Khalistani terrorist organization Babbar Khalsa International had come to fore.
- The National Investigation Agency (NIA) had also investigated this.
- Moreover, security forces recovered 28 weapons which were used by only the army of a neighbouring country.
- NIA found that the weapons were supplied to the Maoist by the terrorist organization Babbar Khalsa.
- Earlier in 2016, security agencies have found concrete evidences of link between Maoists and Jihadi organisations/terror outfits in Bangladesh.
- In the year 2019, cartridges were recovered after an encounter in the inner forests of Nawada during the campaign against the Maoists by the security forces in Bihar.
- Connection with Pakistan or other Islamic terrorist organization were to fore as the cartridges recovered by the security personnel had writings in Urdu
In the above backdrop, the threat mail from SFJ leader GS Pannun’s to a senior scribe seems to be a modus operandi of the Naxals/Maoists in Odisha, feel senior police officials here.
BOTTOMLINE
The big revelation here is Naxal/Maoists sympathisers in Odisha have a Pannun link. The Maoists here have joined with the Khalistani organistaions to source fund and finance in order to revive their organisation and stage a fight back, the battle at present dominated by security forces.
