NEW DELHI: Major militant groups in Punjab, like the Panthic Committees led by Dr. Sohan Singh and Wassan Singh Zaffarwal and the Babbar Khalsa, have spurned the government’s offer for dialogue, “unsure of the latter’s motive and sincerity”, according to Sunday Mail, a Delhi weekly.

The Punjab government has reportedly gone through the long process of checking the prisoners’ lists in all the jails in the state and categorizing them group wise. Some of the prisoners belonging to the constituent bodies of the Sohan Singh and Zaffarwal Panthic Committees and the Babbar Khalsa were identified and reportedly approached in jail to pass on the talks offer to their superiors. Also, the Punjab intelligence agencies, which reportedly have access to the chain of command of the constituent bodies of the Panthic Committee of Gurbachan Singh Manochahal, like Bhindranwale Tigers Force of Khalistan (BTFK), Dashmesh Regiment of Khalistan (DRK) and the Khalistan Commando Force (KCF) have been training to establish links with the group leaders.

However, the Center has been holding talks with some through intermediaries for the last two months, in a bid to ensure peaceful elections.

According to informed sources Akal Federation, a small militant group of no con- sequence, was contacted through a government intermediary, a lawyer in Amritsar”, They said the lawyer approached the Federation leaders, who are hardly known beyond their area of operation and invited them to the negotiating table. So far, the matter rests there, with both sides not clear on what to demand and concede.

Last month, through another intermediary, identified as the son of a prominent former minister, the Federation as also some other small groups were approached. The Amritsar lawyer was also asked to contact the Manjit faction of the All-India Sikh Students Federation,

This despite the government being advised against establishing contacts with the lesser-known groups for obvious reasons – any agreement reached with them will not be binding with on major groups.

Sources claimed that the government, however, was serious about approaching the militants, the reasoning being: “Pacifying the militants would mean peaceful poll and, secondly, the people would come to know that it was the Congress government at the Center and not the Alkalis, which took the initiative to bring peace to the state”. Sources said the government still expected the approaches made to the small groups to be successful shortly”.

The major groups have shown no interest in talking to the government. Sources close to them said “The major groups are in no mood to talk. The bottom line is that if at all the government holds talks with militants, it will be talking to those who are not important at all”.

When contacted, sources close to Khalistan Liberation Front led by Bhai Gurjant Singh Budsinghwala, supporting Dr. Sohan Singh’s Panthic Committee, described as a “smelly olive branch” the statement of home minister S.B. Chavan that the government was willing to talk to any militant provided the issue was “peace”.

The sources said “there are two reasons for our skepticism. First, the government’s eagemess for talks is election-oriented and it just wants to hold the poll. Sending in the Army indicates that the government is not truly interested in talking to militants. Secondly, what was the guarantee that if the talks with a militant group failed, or even if they were in progress, there would not be any crackdown on them?”

Even as the government’s brush with the militants is yet to yield results, the former’s attempts to announce a pre-election package for Punjab continue to be hampered.

Top Punjab government official, who was in Delhi this week to attend a high-level meeting said: Like the previous governments of V.P. Singh and Chandra Shekhar, the present government, too, has nothing new to offer”.

He referred to one of the important parts of the package-transfer of the Union Territory of Chandigarh to Punjab, He said that a “unilateral transfer is impossible to carry out” without a “simultaneous transfer of parts of Abohar and Fazilka districts to Haryana”.

While the Haryana chief minister, Bhajan Lal, has been protesting against the “unilateral” transfer of Chandigarh, it is learnt that to date “there is no consensus of the exact areas of the two Punjab districts to be transferred to Haryana”.

Article extracted from this publication >> December 13, 1991