CHANDIGAR: Fomer Babbar Khalsa International activist Gurdeep Singh Sibia is at present in Punjab police custody. He was whisked away by Chief Minister Beant Singh soon after he made a dramatic public appearance here last week. Beant Singh had also signaled Punjab police chief K P.S Gill to sit along with him to flank Sibia in the car. It was earlier thought that Sibia would be sent to Patiala high-security jail after he had been “milked” on the security side by the Intelligence Bureau and by Beant Singh on the political side. The state police had registered only one case against Sibia pertained to enter India without passport and had also formally arrested him. Surprisingly he has been in the custody of the police for obtaining more information on B.K.I activists in Punjab.
B.K.I. had said in another statement that: “No matter he was pressurized to deliver such speech but in our opinion being a member of the party he spoke against the policies of constitution of the B.K.I. so he is the real offender who spoiled the good will of our party.”
Speculations are also rife here that Amrik Singh Kauli may not have been killed by the police whof claim to have cremated him after his alleged death in an encounter. Is said that either Sibia or Kauli has given vital clues to the Punjab police to arrest and kill Bhai Sukhdev Singh Babbar.
Not much credence is being given by informed quarters to the Punjab police propaganda that Bhai Sukhdev Singh had performed a second marriage to a woman from Nabha and that the couple had a three-year-old son. Also that Bhai Sukhdev Singh had given up an austere life and was living in style. The police chief K.P.S.Gill had not given out any information about such life style of the B.K.I. chief when he had announced Bhai Sukhdev Singh’s death at a press conference held at a tourist house at Neelon in Ludhiana district.
Meanwhile the B.K.I in a statement here denied that Bhai Sukhdev Singh died in a police encounter. Instead Bhai Sukhdev Singh had consumed poison. He died when the police were taking him to Ludhiana. The militant group also denied that he had gone in for a second marriage with Jawahar Kaur and a three-year-old son. However the B.K.I press release admitted that Bhai Sukhdev Singh had been living in a palatial house at Patiala under an alias Jasmer Singh. The three-year-old child was a close relation of Bhai Sukhdev Singh. The life-style adopted by Bhai Sukhdev Singh was aimed at dodging the police and was an attempt to conceal his identity.
Meanwhile the New Delhi weekly “Sunday Mail” has featured prominently an interesting story on Sibia credited to unidentified Indian home ministry officers. The news is reproduced asi “Gurdeep Singh Sibia chief organizer of the overseas unit of Babbar Khalsa who “surrendered to the Punjab chief minister amid much fanfare was a actually “the best deep-penetration agent among the Sikh extremists in recent times” senior Home ministry officials say.
According to them Sibia was sent to India in February this year. While the intelligence agencies were alerted by their sources in Pakistan just before he was to enter the country it took them sometime to pick up his trail. A lucky break came the Indian way in February itself as a foreign remittance to a Ahmedabad bank was traced to Sibia.
Various militant organizations normally convert their foreign funds in the unofficial havala market but this time an error was committed by sending the money through a bank transfer.
Soon Sibia was in the clutches of the Indian intelligence agencies. He was “turned” and returned to the underground Babbar Khalsa organization. He continued to provide information to the officials till June.
But soon after the killing of Amrik Singh member organizing committee of the Babbar Khalsa members began suspecting the presence of an intelligence agent in their midst. So Sibia had to stop his operations and the “surrender” had to be staged to bring him overground and provide him with fuller security. If that had not happened “the best history of Sikh terrorism would have been in serious danger” say the official sources.
The sources reveal that Sibia had entered India via Nepal and he was sent here to organize local funding and clear the channels for arms shipment into the country One of the sources adds that he was also to spearhead the operations on the Punjab government ministers including the chief minister.
The Home ministry is jubilant because it feels that with the surrender of Sibia Pakistani agents will have to abandon communication funding and supply channels that they must have painstaking built up over months. Sibia had told his interrogators that the Pakistani intelligence agencies and the army top brass had decided to change their way of fomenting troubles in India. They have been able to forge a link between the Sikh and Kashmiri militants and the Islamic fundamentalist organizations like the Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).
According to the sources while the Indian Intelligence agencies had some linking of this Sibia has added more pieces to the jigsaw puzzle. He has told his Indian controllers that Gulbadeen Hekmatayar the Afghan mujahideen chief has said that now that his lieutenants will have more free time they can help the Indian militants. They will lend support to Mahal Singh (brother of Sukhdev Singh Babbar) and now the Pakistan-based Babbar Khalsa boss and Daljit Singh Bittu of the second panthic committee. But the sources added that a feeling had gained ground that Sibia had a hand in the killing of Bhai Gurjant Singh Budsinghwala but that feeling was not correct. In the case of Bhai Sukhdev Singh the intelligence had a lead that he had been living as a building contractor and was staying in a house at Patiala.
Article extracted from this publication >> Aug 28, 1992
