AMRITSAR: The Panthic Committee has reiterated its resolve not to supply Khalistan water to India and has decided to strictly enforce the ban the committee said here in a Press release.

The committee met somewhere in Khalistan. Those who attended the meeting were Bhai Daljit Singh Khalsa Baba Sohan Singh Bhai Bindheinghwala Bhai Panjwar and Bhai Chhindran.

The committee explained that its decision was in keeping with the panthic committee’s previous resolution against permitting supply of Khalistan water to India through the Bhakra Mainline canal Indira Gandhi canal Ferozepore canal or the proposed S.Y.L. canal. The committee said it was not against the farmers of Haryana or Rajasthan but was only protecting the interests of Khalistan. Its action was perfectly in keeping with the international law as well as India’s own laws which pay lip service to riparian principles but in practice flout these laws.

The committee owned responsibility for breaking the Bhakra Mainline canal near Pathrori village in Ropar district and the Ferozepore Feeder canal near Manochahal village in Amritsar district. A two hundred foot wide breach was caused in the Ferozepore Feeder canal. Indian authorities had to summon the Army to plug the breach

The panthic committee said that India would have to guard the canals serving Hindu interests in the same way as it was trying to guard international borders.

The panthic committee said that. India had been taking away 75% of Khalistan water to non-riparian Rajasthan and Haryana starving Punjab farmers of water. Crops in Punjab wither for want of adequate irrigation facilities. The sub-soil water level had gone down all over Punjab forcing farmers to spend hundreds of crores of rupees on deep tube wells.

Earlier it may be recalled the Babbar Khalsa International had issued a strongly-worded statement reiterating its commitment to stop Khalistan water to Hindu India. The B.K.I had announced that it regarded the water issue as a key matter for Khalistan. The B.K.I had also demanded introduction of and in Punjab University Chandigarh and in Indian government’s electronic media.

The panthic committee and the B.K.I are the two leading most organizations of Sikh militants operating in Punjab They had parted company at least organizationally in the wake of a proposal to hold talks between the Chander Shekhar government and Sikh militants. But the latest reiteration of the commitments on specific action programs by the two organizations has brought them closer in practice. This unity of action on a specific program has enhanced the public image of the two organizations. The public views these organizations as defenders of the interests of farmers of Punjabis and of Khalistan and not “terrorists” out on a blood-letting spree. Even the Indian authorities are now mortally afraid of the political program of the two militant organizations because it will be difficult for Delhi to carry on the loot of Punjab’s water resources for ever

Haryanas anti-Sikh chief minister as well as Congress(I) dissidents who had been clamoring for Punjab water have fallen silent and are a worried lot So are the Hindu fundamentalist chief minister of Rajasthan.

They are soon likely to compel India to permit guarding of canals in Khalistan by the Haryana and Rajasthan police forces. That in tum will expose the colonial nature of India’s domination of Khalistan say militants.

Article extracted from this publication >> June 19, 1992