By Our Correspondent CHANDIGARH: Twenty seven members of the militant Hindu organization the Rashtrya Suryamsewak Sangh (R.S.S) were killed as they were going through their paramilitary training at Nehru Park here on June 25.

The town was reported to be tense but the authorities had released the indefinite curfew which they originally imposed.

The RSS, or National Volunteer Corps, is an influential Hindu chauvinist national organization with fascist overtones. It is tightly organized cells with a strict hierarchical leadership.

RSS. Like Nazis

Its youth wing’s uniform consists of white shirts and brown shorts, it employs salutes similar to those of Hitler’s Nazis and like the Nazis it was founded in 1920’s.

According to news reports the gunmen came in a van and sprayed the area with bullets from automatic weapons as the RS.S youths were gathered for their morning paramilitary training and indoctrination session.

A para military home guard jawan and a policeman were killed ‘by a bomb which exploded soon after the attack. Another bomb also exploded a short while later but there were no casualties.

Home Minister Buta Singh visited Moga after the incident. He was accompanied by the Bharitya Janata Party leader Atal Bihari Vajpai.

The B.J.P. has close links with the R.S.S and its Delhi unit held a satyagrah protest the Moga firing.

Incensed workers of the BJP did not even let Buta Singh get out of his car. They also shouted antigovernment and anti-Congress I slogans.

According to a news agency report, a press statement was issued by General Gurjant Singh Budhsinghwale and Dyal Singh Chandwparana of the Khalistan Commando Force, and Bant Singh Bant and Avtar Singh of the Bhindrawale Tiger Force, claimed responsibility for the incident and said it was to avenge the extra judicial killings of Bohar Singh ‘Nachat Singh, Balbir Singh, and other innocent Sikhs in the area in fake encounters by the police.

Dead Or Alive The report also said that a peaceful strike was held on June 26 in Jammu, Shimla, Chandigarh and major towns of Punjab to protest the killings.

A press release by Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh of the Council of Khalistan in Washington said the incident was “instigated or even carried out by covert cadres of the Indian government.”

“It would offer police an excuse to further terrorize the Sikhs … The Governor of Punjab, Siddarth Shamkar Ray has already told his police force to capture Moga terrorists “dead or alive.” When the Governor says “terrorist” you can be sure he means Sikhs. He is not going hunting for Indian government intelligence agents,” it added.

 

Article extracted from this publication >>  June 30, 1989