Sikh Religious Extremism - Rise of Militancy

Rise of Militancy

On 29 April 1986, an assembly of separatist Sikhs at the Akal Takht made a declaration of an independent state of Khalistan. These events were followed by a decade of violence and conflict in Punjab before a return to normality in the region. During the late 1980s and the early 1990s, there was a dramatic rise in radical State militancy in Punjab. The period of insurgency saw clashes of the Sikh militants with the police, as well as with the Hindu-Nirankari groups. The Khalistani militant activities manifested in form of several attacks such as the 1987 killing of 32 Hindu bus passengers near Lalru and the 1991 killing of 80 train passengers in Ludhiana.

The Khalistan-related militant activities continued in the 1990s, as the perpetrators of the 1984 riots remained unpunished, and many Sikhs felt that they were being discriminated and their religious rights were being suppressed.

GlobalSecurity.org reported that, in the early 1990s, journalists who did not conform to militant-approved behavior were targeted for death. It also reports that there were indiscriminate attacks designed to cause extensive civilian casualties: derailing trains, exploding bombs in markets, restaurants, and other civilian areas between Delhi and Punjab. It further reported that militants assassinated many of those moderate Sikh leaders who opposed them and sometimes killed rivals within the militant group. It also stated that many civilians who had been kidnapped by extremists were murdered if the militants' demands were not met. Finally, it reports that Hindus left Punjab by the thousands.

In August 1991, Julio Ribeiro, then Indian Ambassador to Romania was attacked and wounded in a Bucharest assassination attempt by gunmen identified as Punjabi Sikhs. Sikh groups claimed responsibility for the 1991 kidnapping of the Romanian chargé d'affaires in New Delhi, Liviu Radu. This appeared to be retaliation for Romanian arrests of KLF members suspected of the attempted assassination of Julio Ribeiro. Radu was released unharmed after Sikh politicians criticized the action.

In October, 1991, The New York Times reported that violence had increased sharply in the months leading up to the kidnapping, with Indian security forces or Sikh militants killing 20 or more people per day, and that the militants had been "gunning down" family members of police officers.

On 31 August 1995, Chief minister Beant Singh was killed by a suicide bomber. The pro-Khalistan group Babbar Khalsa claimed responsibility for the assassination, but security authorities were reported to be doubtful of the truth of that claim. A 2006 press release by the Embassy of the United States in New Delhi indicated that the responsible organization was the Khalistan Commando Force.

While the militants enjoyed some support within the Sikh separatists in the earlier period, the support for Sikh militants gradually disappeared. The insurgency weakened the Punjab economy and led to an increase in the violence in the state. With dwindling support and an increasingly effective Indian security troops eliminating the anti-state combatants, the Sikh militancy was effectively over by early 1990s.

There were serious charges leveled by human rights activists against Indian Security forces (Headed by KPS Gill - himself a Sikh) that thousands of suspects were killed in staged shootouts and thousands of bodies were cremated/disposed without proper identification or post-mortem.

Human Rights Watch reported that since 1984, the government forces have resorted to widespread human rights violations to fight the militants, including arbitrary arrest, prolonged detention without trial, torture, disappearance and summary killing of civilians and suspected militants. Family members were frequently detained and tortured to reveal the whereabouts of relatives sought by the police The organization International Human Rights Organization claims that several Sikh women were reportedly gang-raped and molested by the Punjab Police and the Indian security forces during house to house searches. It also claims that looting of the villagers' property and ransacking of the entire villages happened during this period. Amnesty International has also alleged several cases of appearances, torture, rape and unlawful detentions by the police during Punjab insurgency, for which 75-100 police officers had been convicted by December 2002. Ram Narayan Kumar, the author of Reduced to Ashes, claims that the issue of Khalistan was used by the State to divert attention from real issues of democracy, constitutional safeguard and citizens' rights.