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India accuses Pakistan of inciting Sikh radicals
NEW DELHI - India’s top national security official has accused Pakistan of trying to stir up Sikh militancy in the northern state of Punjab, reports said Wednesday.
The accusation by National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan came in the wake of a bomb blast Sunday in a packed cinema in the state’s industrial city of Ludhiana that killed six people and injured 32 others.“There has been a manifest attempt in Pakistan to build up a radical Sikh environment,” Narayanan was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency. “We had intelligence about four to six months back that a lot of effort was going into attempts to foment militancy,” he said.“We have tracked intelligence information, we have studied the way such attacks take place and we can read a pattern.”Punjab, India’s only Sikh-majority state with a population of about 25 million, was wracked by a separatist revolt in the 1980s which claimed thousands of lives before it was quashed.
A home ministry official and the state’s former police chief earlier this week also blamed Sunday’s attack on Sikh separatists, who have links to Islamic rebels allegedly backed by Pakistan.
Former police chief Kanwar Pal Singh Gill, who is credited with wiping out the Sikh militant movement in the 1980s in a merciless crackdown, pointed a finger at a group called the Khalistan Zindabad Force (KZF).The group wants an independent state called Khalistan carved out of India and has been linked to Kashmir-based Islamic rebel groups.
The allegations come ahead of a scheduled October 22 meeting in New Delhi of senior Indian and Pakistani officials on efforts to combat cross-border militancy.India accuses Pakistan of not doing enough to prevent Islamic extremists from using its soil as a springboard to launch attacks, especially in Kashmir where a separatist revolt has claimed more than 44,000 lives since 1989.Pakistan, which launched peace talks with India in 2004, denies the charge.
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NEW DELHI - India’s top national security official has accused Pakistan of trying to stir up Sikh militancy in the northern state of Punjab, reports said Wednesday.
The accusation by National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan came in the wake of a bomb blast Sunday in a packed cinema in the state’s industrial city of Ludhiana that killed six people and injured 32 others.“There has been a manifest attempt in Pakistan to build up a radical Sikh environment,” Narayanan was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency. “We had intelligence about four to six months back that a lot of effort was going into attempts to foment militancy,” he said.“We have tracked intelligence information, we have studied the way such attacks take place and we can read a pattern.”Punjab, India’s only Sikh-majority state with a population of about 25 million, was wracked by a separatist revolt in the 1980s which claimed thousands of lives before it was quashed.
A home ministry official and the state’s former police chief earlier this week also blamed Sunday’s attack on Sikh separatists, who have links to Islamic rebels allegedly backed by Pakistan.
Former police chief Kanwar Pal Singh Gill, who is credited with wiping out the Sikh militant movement in the 1980s in a merciless crackdown, pointed a finger at a group called the Khalistan Zindabad Force (KZF).The group wants an independent state called Khalistan carved out of India and has been linked to Kashmir-based Islamic rebel groups.
The allegations come ahead of a scheduled October 22 meeting in New Delhi of senior Indian and Pakistani officials on efforts to combat cross-border militancy.India accuses Pakistan of not doing enough to prevent Islamic extremists from using its soil as a springboard to launch attacks, especially in Kashmir where a separatist revolt has claimed more than 44,000 lives since 1989.Pakistan, which launched peace talks with India in 2004, denies the charge.
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