GS Paul
Tribune News Service
Attari, July 14
Indian officials today submitted a dossier to their Pakistan counterparts raising security concern surrounding certain individuals and organisations that may try to disrupt the Kartarpur pilgrimage, to which Islamabad assured that no anti-India activity would be allowed.
SCL Das, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, said the dossier focussed on the importance of ensuring safe and secure environment for pilgrims as he referred to the removal by Pakistan of pro-Khalistan supporter Gopal Singh Chawla as secretary of the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (PSGPC) and from the panel linked to the cross-border corridor after India put pressure on Islamabad.
“We have shared our concern on this with Pakistan officials and they assured that no anti-India activity would be allowed. We sought confirmation about Gopal Singh Chawla’s removal from all Sikh bodies, including the PSGPC, and they indeed provided us proofs to corroborate it.
We had sought this specific action and they complied, but we had no information about any subsequent development after that. But, certainly, we would share it with our security agencies and department concerned to follow it up,” he said.
Questions were, however, being raised over inclusion of Ameer Singh, a pro-separatist leader and brother of Khalistani leader Bishen Singh, on the panel. Reports suggest Ameer, among the frontline leaders of the Khalistani movement across the border, belongs to Pakistan Punjab province where Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed has been funding terror activities.
Das said individuals or organisations based in Pakistan or in Canada/America who intend to disrupt the pilgrimage or misuse the opportunity to attempt anti-national activity had been kept under close watch. Pointing towards Sikh referendum 2020, he said the Centre was adopting ‘zero tolerance’ policy against a handful of people operating from overseas by spreading anti-India and anti-Punjab ‘online propaganda’.
Sources say Chawla continues to be linked with Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB), which controls religious affairs and arranges pilgrimage to Pakistan Sikh shrines in coordination with PSGPC. It’s feared that Chawla, a non-official member of ETPB, may still have access to PSGPC programmes.
from The Tribune https://ift.tt/2SfNv3Y
via Today’s News Headlines
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