Pakistan and India have been through some deadly battles in their relatively short history, but the latest news of the Pakistani army training Indian Sikh militants will not be received well within the Indian government. This controversial and provocative move by Pakistani army has caused a storm through the Indian government, who were only too willing to show their disproval.
The government of predominantly Hindu in India has alleged that Muslim Pakistani’s are helping to arm and train the Sikh militants of the Punjab, who for four years have waged a bloody and often terroristic fight to secedefrom India and establish an independent Sikh nation to be known as Khalistan. However, a new motivation was given to the charges by the surrender last month of about 200 militants at the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
“Pakistan is perhaps the largest supporter of terrorism on the globe,” Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi told reporters at the United Nations recently.
“We have given (the Pakistanis) a detailed list of training camps, of people who are carrying out the training, the type of training that has been carried out in the camps,” he said, demanding that Pakistan halt the aid. ”We have given them maps of where the camps are located”, Indian officials have said.
Pakistani leaders have been quick to deny this, as well as the charge that they are training or arming the Sikhs. Pakistani officials also have recently proposed a joint Indian-Pakistani border patrol for the 150-mile Punjab border.
Pakistani officials have acknowledged that certain long-established smugglers in the area may be carrying arms across the border, but they say there is little Pakistan can do about this.
Indian Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde accused Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency of pressuring Sikh militant leaders to target Indian Punjab and other parts of the country.“There has been some significant development on the Sikh militancy front,” Shinde said in New Delhi. “It’s commanders based in Pakistan are under pressure from ISI to further ISI’s terror plans not only in Punjab but also in other parts of the country,” alleged the Indian minister.
“The Sikh youths are being trained in ISI facilities in Pakistan.”
The minister singled out the threat to the north western state during a speech to state chief ministers gathered in New Delhi for an annual conference on internal security.
Historian and expert Jahan Mahmood gave us his views on this latest diplomatic matter.
Jahan said “If war was to ever breakout between these nations again, the fact that one of them has an ally in the other country means it has strategic lever it can pull when it needs
Some Indian Sikhs find they have something in common with the Pakistan Establishment for example that is they harbour a mutual hatred towards the Indian state.”
The Sikhs have not forgotten the attack by Indian forces on the Golden Temple in 1984 codenamed operation bluestar – this continues to draw much bitterness among some elements of the Sikh community in India, who feel they have not properly avenged the attack.
Jahan went on to say Pakistan will not gain any financial benefit from this training of Sikh Militants but may well gain strategically.
By Aneesa Malik
