The past three years have seen no civilian fatalities in Punjab (the singlefatality in year 2005 was in the Cinema Hall Blasts, in Delhi), but there hasbeen a continuous pattern of arrests and seizures of arms and explosives,indicating unrelenting efforts to resuscitate the terror, stifled, on eachoccasion, by the complete absence of public support, and the immensely improvedintelligence capabilities of the Punjab Police. Over 1,000 kilograms ofexplosive materials have been recovered from terrorist cells in the State inthis period, along with a large number of sophisticated weapons includingassault rifles and grenade launchers, as well as other equipment, and at least30 Pakistan-backed 'modules' have been neutralized.
These persistent failures can be traced to the fact that the fundamentalistmindset, which the ISI and Pakistan military establishment are themselves aproduct of, cannot understand the culture and the way of thought that areintegral to the Sikh - and indeed, Indian - way of thought. There is a graphicand utter failure of understanding on the part of the Pakistani establishment inthis, and, while such efforts can inflict great personal tragedies on haplessinnocents, they have little potential to help Pakistan secure its strategicobjectives in India.
Past failures and the futility of the enterprise, however, has not preventedPakistan from continuing to support the tattered survivors of the movement inthe hope that circumstances may, eventually change sufficiently to effectivelyrevive the terror in Punjab. In addition to the BKI, its 'chief', Wadhawa Singh,and 'deputy chief', Mehal Singh, and an unspecified number of cadres, Pakistancontinues to host the Khalistan Zindabad Force (KZF) and its 'chief', RanjitSingh Neeta; a faction of the Khalistan Commando Force (KCF) and its 'chief'Paramjit Singh Panjawar; the International Sikh Youth Federation - Rode and its'coordinator', Lakhbir Singh Rode; the Dal Khalsa International, headed byGajinder Singh 'Hijacker'; and the Council of Khalistan, led by Balbir SinghSandhu.
In addition, a number of Khalistani groups maintain a significant presence inseveral Western countries. They include the BKI, KZF, KCF-Panjwar, KhalistanNational Army, Kamagata Maru Dal of Khalistan, Sikh Youth of Belgium, ISYF, theCouncil of Khalistan, Sikh Youth of America, and the Sikh Affairs Committee.Their efforts are closely coordinated by the ISI, and though these groups havenot engaged in violence in these countries in recent times, they continue toprovide critical support in terms of funding, propaganda, logisticalcoordination and recruitment. Several young men based in these countries haveundergone training in Pakistan in the handling of sophisticated weapons andexplosives, with the understanding that their 'services' may be called for at anappropriate time.
In addition to the BKI, among the relatively active of these groups in recenttimes has been Ranjit Singh Neeta's KZF, which has been responsible for severalincidents of explosions in Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir(J&K). One of the active modules of the KZF was neutralized towards the endof 2004 in district Gurdaspur, leading to a massive recovery of weapons andexplosives. The module included two Pakistani nationals - Mohammad Hanif andAbdul Hamid - who had been given Sikh identities.
The ISI has exploited these various groups for a range of other subversiveactivities as well, including the provision of active assistance to narcoticssmuggling and narcotics transportation to various destinations; the distributionof fake currency; and espionage. There have been repeated attempts to forgealliances with Islamist militants active in J&K, but these have, at worst,met with very limited and transient success.
It is abundantly clear that, despite the abject failure of the Khalistanmovement, Pakistan continues to maintain and support these various groups in theexpectation of future opportunities that may arise out of politicalcircumstances in Punjab, or from predicaments that arise out of transientexigencies, as was the case in the Cinema Hall Blasts in Delhi, which sought toexploit momentary passions whipped up over the film, Jo Bole So Nihal.