Parliament Gas Attack: India Probing Links To Khalistani Terrorist Pannun
India's national security agencies are probing the links of Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun to today's gas attack on the Parliament, highly placed sources in India's Ministry of Home Affairs told Businessworld.
In a video released in December earlier, Pannun the leader of the Khalistani terrorist organizations operating in foreign land, had threatened to attack the Indian "Parliament on or before December 13". In the video, Pannun had said, "...will shake the very foundations of the Parliament, on or before 13 December." Pannun's video had surfaced after an alleged plot to kill him in the U.S. was foiled. The US government had blamed India for the assassination plot and the FBI director Christopher Wray has come down here to meet Indian counter parts on the issue.
But the attack on Parliament now following Pannun's threat changes everything as India is likely to put the FBI director in the dock on the US shielding Pannun. There is a belief in India's bureaucratic establishments that Pannun was a CIA asset and hence protected.
Among the two accused caught today for the Parliament gas attack, one of them had entered into the Parliament premises on a pass facilitated by a BJP MP, which complicates the matter. But security experts say, it is a classic intelligence agency like operation to 'somehow portray' the accused to be linked to the ruling dispensation so that the government finds it difficult to connivence the world of a "foreign hand." If India blamed Pannun for today's gas attack, the US can hit back saying the entry passes were facilitated by a BJP MP to the accused, which puts India on the backfoot.
"But these are intelligence agency-like operations where they know how to twist the plot to divert the blame. Getting entry passes for unsuspecting students on any MP's name may not be a difficult task for any major terror organisation backed by a powerful intelligence agency," says a former officer of intelligence bureau in India.
Pannun a wanted terrorist in India
Pannun the key leader of the Khalistan movement, which advocates for a religion-based separate state to be split out from Punjab and many neighbouring areas in India, to be known as Khalistan. He is the legal advisor and spokesperson for Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), which aims to promote the idea of a separate Sikh state. As of July 2020, the Ministry of Home Affairs of India has declared Pannun a terrorist on the grounds of sedition and secessionism and has requested an Interpol red notice for him.
Pannun has claimed responsibility for various terror incidents in India. In April 2023, in a video, he issued a threat to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Assam. In June 2023, Pannun reportedly went into hiding after the death of three other prominent Khalistani leaders in two months.
In September 2023, a video surfaced in which Pannun warned Indo-Canadian Hindus to leave Canada. In October, Pannun had threatened to blow-up Air India flight.
Also Read: Parliament Gas Attack: Major Security Breach In Lok Sabha
