According to "inputs" from concerned agencies, a banned Khalistani organisation headed by Gurpatwant Singh Pannun incited Christians in Manipur to secede from India.
Pannun was designated as a terrorist by the Govt of India in July 2020.
He and his organisation also reportedly played nasty games with Muslims in Tamil Nadu.
The banned organisation Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) also planned terror activities that include threats to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, said a note said in the "tribunal order" that government published in a gazette notification extending the ban on SFJ for another five years.
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| An ill-fated young girl at a relief camp in Churachandpur, Manipur |
"Dividing people on communal lines by provoking minority communities against the other communities has become a major tool for SFJ to push up its anti-India agenda.
SFJ have been inciting the Christian community in Manipur to raise their voices for a 'separate country', the people of Tamil Nadu to raise flags of 'Dravidstan' and have been stoking Muslim sentiments by raising the bogey of 'minority persecution' and exhorted Muslims of India to carve out a separate 'Urduistan'," the note prepared by intelligence agencies said (media reports).
In its order passed on Jan 27th, 2025, the tribunal upheld the ban on the SFJ for another five years.
The SFJ was first banned in 2019 for five years. The ban was extended for another five years in July 2024.
"Further, SFJ urged the Dalits of India to extend support for its secessionist exercise, citing their 'persecution' in the hands of the Indian government. SFJ has also been involved in provoking the farmers of Punjab and Haryana over farm bills," the background note said.
“The SFJ has been trying to provoke on social media, the Sikh Soldiers of the Indian Army for mutiny by asking them to leave the Indian Army and join SFJ. Pannun had urged Sikh Soldiers to join the SFJ movement and offered Rs 5,000 more than the salary given by the Indian government," the Union Home Ministry’s submission said.
Pannun also (allegedly) tried to provoke the Sikh soldiers posted in Ladakh not to fight for India against Chinese aggression. Pannun also tried to provoke the Punjab Police officials urging them not to stop farmers going to Jalandhar, Pathankot and Abohar and to stop the Prime Minister from his upcoming rallies, the note said.
The valley-dominant Meitei community in Manipur and over a dozen distinct tribes collectively known as Kuki, who are dominant in some hill areas of the state that shares an open border with Myanmar, have been fighting since May 2023.
Multiple issues have complicated the games in Manipur. The so-called ethnic fights have happened over a range of issues such as land rights and political representation.
Major border fencing work started only earlier after Home Minister AmitShah made the announcement for the same.
A majority of the Meiteis are Hindus, while a small section are Christians. Manipuri (or Meitei Muslims) are called Pangals.
The Zo-Kuki tribes are Christians. There is another potent Christian community - the Nagas and they have their own movement against India seeking 'independence'.
The Naga rebels are in talks with the Govt of India since 1997 when I K Gujral was the Prime Minister.
Post 2023 Kuki-Meitei clashes, the Nagas of Manipur, have however said - that they are brothers of Meiteis (mostly Hindus).
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| arms recovery in Manipur are 'regular' |
Of the 39 terrorist organisations banned by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), eight are Meitei outfits from Manipur such as the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the Kanglei Yaol Kanba Lup (KYKL).
"SFJ has also been inciting Sikh personnel in army and police forces to desert. SFJ has been colluding with gangsters, terrorists and other radical elements including Kashmiri separatists.
Besides, SFJ continues to receive support from Pakistan.
Of late, SFJ has also been inciting Muslims, Tamils and Christians from Manipur to secede from India. Currently, around 104 cases have been registered against SFJ activists or sympathizers in India by state or UT police and NIA under various sections of UA(P)A, 1967; IPC; Arms Act, 1959; IT Act, 2000 and various other applicable laws," the background note prepared by intelligence agencies said.
Over 250 people have died and 50,000 have been internally displaced in the Manipur violence.
A speech by the leader of a Canada-based Kuki-Zo tribes group from Manipur over the ethnic violence back home had sparked a massive controversy in August 2023, three months after the ethnic clashes began in the border state.
The event in early August (2023) was held at the same Gurdwara in Canada's Surrey, whose chief and Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead by unidentified people in June 2023.
Lien Gangte, the Canada chapter chief of the North American Manipur Tribal Association (NAMTA) which represented the newly coined nomenclature 'Kuki-Zo' after May 2023, in his address condemned what he called "attacks on minorities in India" and asked Canada for "all possible help".
The NAMTA had posted a video of the event on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) on August 7, 2023.
It deleted the videos much later when the row between India and Canada surfaced following Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's claim that "Indian government agents" were involved in the killing of the Khalistani terrorist Nijjar.
A Kuki-Zo communications professional who had been tracking the Manipur crisis told NDTV then that the NAMTA video was blown out of proportion, and its critics were forcing a conspiracy where none existed. The video came out in early August 2023, and no one had any problem with it until the Canada-India row over Nijjar's killing started a month later.
"This talk of NAMTA's association with Khalistanis is a big lie. It has no credibility whatsoever except for troll handles posting this. Tomorrow, if trolls start calling you a terrorist, you will have to give a statement?" the communications professional told NDTV, requesting anonymity.
In 2023 railway tracks were tampered with at Pannun’s directions.
The government also submitted that the SFJ activists and sympathisers were involved in at least two incidents of railway sabotage that happened in 2023 in Punjab.
It revealed that on the directions of Pannun, clips of a track were removed in the Lehra Mahout village in Bhatinda on March 14, 2023. Some days later, around 50 clamps were removed from the railway track near Pathrala Railway Station on his directions.
The government said that Pannun asked Pro-Khalistani Elements (PKEs) to “sabotage railway tracks in Punjab to cause derailment or accident of passenger and goods trains, particularly those ferrying migrant labourers to take revenge of recent killings of pro-Khalistani Elements based abroad”
In 2023, the Punjab Police registered a case against the SFJ for issuing death threats to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
Since 2018, at least 122 cases have been registered against the SFJ by different state police forces and the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
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