Chandigarh: The recent busting of a series of terror modules in Punjab has left the state police top brass a worried lot. They feel that there is a need to eliminate these modules completely to rule out the possibility of revival of militancy at any scale in the state. According to them, revival of militancy at a large scale is not possible, but there is a strong possibility of fissiparous forces disturbing the state’s hard earned peace.
“Incidents of sacrilege in the recent past have brought forth the fact that social fabric of Punjab is not as strong as is perceived from the outside,” commented a senior cop, requesting anonymity. “What further worries us is the way politicians respond to such incidents as if they wish to fish in the troubled waters, whichmust be avoided,” he added.
Top cops of Punjab Police, which faced the toughest challenge of fighting and defeating terrorism in the state under the leadership of then DGP KPS Gill, who died recently, are concerned over the manner in which the members of terror modules manage to live so harmoniously with locals. As has been revealed from the interrogation of arrested terror module members, their targets have always been high profile people including Congress leaders JagdishTytler and Sajjan Kumar, two senior Congress leaders who are accused of fomenting 1984-riots against Sikhs in Delhi after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
CBI is already probing the killing of Punjab’s high profile RSS leader retired Brigadier JagdishGagneja last year, which is considered to be the handiwork of terror module.
Police claim that most of the terror modules in Punjab were either backed or trained by Pakistan’s spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to carry out attacks in the state. Only recently the Punjab Police had arrested three members of an alleged terror module—Gurdial Singh, Jagroop Singh and Satwinder Singh, who were directly associated with the International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF), which is said to be an ISI-backed terror outfit. Police had even claimed that ISYFchief Lakhbir Rode, who is in Pakistan, had told them to carry out attacks on certain individuals.
Police has also claimed that Jagroop revealed during interrogation that he was imparted training by the ISI to sabotage rail tracks.