Journalist Terry Milewski tears into attempts by pro-Khalistani group to discredit report on Khalistan terror network

Ottawa [Canada], September 19 (ANI): Reacting sharply to pro-Khalistani group's letter against his report on Khalistani terror network, Journalist Terry Milewski has asserted that his article is chock-full of documented facts and named sources and said that the "attackers" never cited anything to prove why they condemned it.
Milewski's report released earlier this month titled "Khalistan: A project of Pakistan" researches the Khalistan movement and discovers its reality as a geopolitical project nurtured by Pakistan, threatening the national security of Canadians and Indians."This week, reports from India continue to demonstrate the threat that Pakistan-sponsored Khalistani terrorism poses", it said.
The pro-Khalistani group has issued a letter trying to discredit the article with the support of Pakistan intelligence agency ISI.
A letter addressed to the board of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, which published the report, expressed concern with the manner in which the report casts wide aspersions on a "highly visible, racialized community, engaged in legitimate advocacy".
In a thread of tweets, Milewski tore into the claims made by the scholars regarding the article.
"A thread on the disinformation campaign against a recent article in which I argue that the Khalistan movement serves Pakistan's interest in bleeding India, but lacks support among Sikhs and is not close to delivering a Sikh state."
"Some Khalistanis don't want people to know all this. It undermines their claim to speak for Sikhs. But both parts - the Pakistani role and the lack of support - are true and evident. The question is why our attackers never cite anything the article actually says, to show what's wrong with it. They say the piece is bad, terrible, but...we never see a quote to prove it," he added.
However, Milewski, the author of the report, pointed out that the letter thrashing the article fails to provide a single quote from it as evidence for their claims and the letter never disputes with the fact that Pakistan supports the Khalistan movement.
"So my own report is chock-full of documented facts and named sources. And a first, striking feature of the scholars' letter is that it never disputes the whole point of the report. It does not argue that, no, Pakistan doesn't back the Khalistan movement for its own purposes," he tweeted.
It is pertinent to note that the website "www.sikhscholarsresponse.com" where the letter emerged was registered on September 15 and the letter was uploaded on it on the same day. The letter was signed by over 54 people. The website has only one web page in it and does not contain other content, links, or web pages except the letter, which has been published on its homepage.
In their letter, Milewski said that the scholars could not prove that she so-called independence is supported by most Sikhs.
"No clue is offered - not a word. In this "litany," they could not find one to show us. Why not? They certainly would have quoted one - heck, the whole litany - if they'd found it. And learned academics would all know that their letter would look silly with zero evidence," he tweeted. (ANI)

Raj Kantak

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