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Terror’s big Cat in India is the
State itself
“You name one
officer who does not have cats. Cats are working in every state, be
it Punjab, Tripura or Mizoram. No antiterrorist operation can be
completed without cats,” former Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder
Singh was telling reporters at the PGI where he had gone to ask
about the well being of S S Virk, another one in love with Cats. For
long years, human rights activists and organizations loudly alleged
that the Punjab Police was killing people in fake encounters. While
one day the then Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar will tell the nation
that the Sikh youth who had taken up the gun were only"our own
mislead children", the next day the news will come about the death
of some "mislead children" in one or the other fake encounters.
Punjab heard loud
proclamations of bullet for bullet policy, and then it witnessed
gross rights violators like Beant Singh and KPS Gill running a
regime of Cats and fake encounters. The Indian nation spilled out
all its honors for Beant Singh, KPS Gill and the likes of S S Virk.
Beant Singh's progeny spent some time facing corruption charges, one
of them made quite a name for himself for molesting a French girl
while KPS Gill brought great honor for India with his conviction in
a case of moral turpitude and happily paid the fine. He remains
India's star on the hockey turf and unsolicited advice dispenser on
issues of terrorism. S S Virk has shown his prowess in the property
and real estate business besides validating his love for Cats.
Such are the men
India has fielded in its fight against terror. What can the Indian
people do in such circumstances? The entire north east in on fire
for decades and the Delhi-centric India has stopped bothering.
Farmers across India are committing suicide but Delhi talks of nine
per cent growth rates. The problem of landless is called naxalite
problem. The Sikh aspirational movement is called terrorism.
Minorities are being threatened about their status and Sikhs are set
to lose the minority status, thanks to a bill pending before
Parliament. The community cannot marry as per its own norms and has
to submit to the Hindu Marriage Act.
The WSN cover
story in this edition has brought out how now India's top police
officer and a chief minister of the Congress regime have actually
and publicly validated the use of Cats and fake encounters and have
told us that this was the national strategy to fight the Sikh
militants. If the country has a semblance of shame left, it owes an
answer to not just the Sikhs but right thinking people all over the
world about the gross blunders it committed on this front and how it
planned to address the concerns of the community.
The Sikh Diaspora
is trying hard to tell the world about who they are; it is time the
Diaspora also underlined what the community went through in
contemporary history and how the nation state of India treated it.
Let the brave American nation and the people anywhere living in
democratically run regimes know how India is suppressing its own
people and thereby generating more terror and terrorists. The story
of state terrorism is a hoary one as the state has much more
potential to inflict terror on innocent citizens. At a time when the
world joins in expressing solidarity with the victims of 9/11 and
commemorates their memories, the Sikhs pray to God Almighty Akal
Purakh with folded hands for Sarbat Da Bhala and beseech their
American brethren to turn their attention to what causes the growth
of terror and terrorists and the role that the Indian government has
been playing in this growth. The war against terrorism needs to be
broadened, because peace involves us all.
12 September, 2007
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