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| India-Pakistan |
| Pakistan inciting Sikh radicals, alleges India |
| 2007-10-18 |
| India’s top national security official has accused Pakistan of trying to stir up Sikh militancy in Punjab, striking a sour note ahead of direct talks this week between the South Asian rivals. The accusation by National Security Advisor MK Narayanan came in the wake of a bomb blast on Sunday in a packed cinema in the state’s industrial city of Ludhiana that killed six people and injured 32. “There has been a manifest attempt in Pakistan to build up a radical Sikh environment,” Narayanan was quoted as saying by the Indian Express daily. “We have tracked intelligence information, we have studied the way such attacks take place and we can read a pattern,” Narayanan said. 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. |
| Posted by:Fred |