New Delhi, India — India Monday said it has asked the U.S. government to shut down what an Indian official called ‘“‘terrorist schools” like one in Alabama where some Sikhs allegedly received mercenary training.
The minister of state for external affairs, Khurshed Alam Khan, also told Parliament that India has urged the United States to take steps for curbing international terrorism aimed at other nations.
“The White House has threatened stern action against any terrorist act toward the United States, but it should take the same stand in the case of terrorism towards other governments also,” Khan told the Lok Sabha, or lower house.
Khan said the government has also expressed serious concern to Britian, Canada and West Germany about the activities of Sikhs there.
“The Sikhs should realize that their problems cannot be solved in Washington, Bonn, Londor or Ottawa,” he said. “They should come to India for any negotiations.”
Khan was replying after several days of debate on training allegedly given to four Sikhs at the Redondo mercenary training school in Alabama. The camp is run by Vietnam veteran Frank Camper, who has said the Sikhs were trained there.
Gandhi has complained that the FBI did not tell India all that it knew about the plot.
A US. State Department official, speaking on the condition that he remains anonymous, said Monday in Washington, D.C. that the administration has explained to India that there is no legal way to close such schools down.
Several lawmakers, both from opposition parties and Gandhi’s governing Congress Party, charged during the debates that the schools were financed and directed by the FBI and CIA to destabilize other countries.
- K. Tiwari of the Congress Party charged that the FBI broke up the assassination plot only because it did not want the attack to take place on U.S. Territory.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 2, 1985
