An exercise has been undertaken to identify them and record their activities following reports that many of them could relapse into militant activities.
Cops are worried that they may be luring youths
CHANDIGARH: More than 250 sleeper cells of former Punjab militants are giving the police sleepless nights. An exercise has been undertaken to identify them and record their activities following reports that many of them could relapse into militant activities.
More than their active participation in violence, the police have been concerned at their motivational role to lure vulnerable Punjabi youth into militancy.
The matter came into sharp focus at a high-level meeting of officials on Thursday at which the instance of former militant Bakshish Singh, who was instrumental in plotting and planning the blast on the cavalcade of Dera Sacha Sauda dera chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh last week, was cited.
Bakshish, who had been involved in more than 20 criminal cases, had been an active member of the Khalistan commando force, but has been lying low for some time. Though he had been regularly reporting to the police about his whereabouts, he motivated two youths Swaran Singh and Manohar Singh to execute the blast.
While Manohar Singh was lured with the promise that Bakshish Singh’s organisation would meet the expenses of his wife’s cancer treatment, Swaran was ideologically motivated.
For the police, the situation has been tense ever since the Dera controversy erupted last year.
“The Dera chief’s alleged act of disgrace to the Sikh gurus has become an easy fodder for the former militants to get back into action,” said a senior officer.
Jagseer Singh, the nodal person and the brain behind its formation, had been working as a granthi (religious preacher) in a gurdwara after he quit militancy in late ’90s.
His close associate, Atwinder Singh from Ferozepur, has been an absconder. During their interrogation, both admitted to motivating youth to take to arms. Their prime motivation was Dera Sacha Sauda chief Ram Rahim Singh.
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