Kan­warpal Singh, an ac­tive par­tic­i­pant in the po­lit­i­cal life of Pun­jab, keenly ob­serv­ing and mon­i­tor­ing the acts of the In­dian state vis-a-vis the Sikh po­lit­i­cal dis­si­dents raises per­ti­nent ques­tions re­lat­ing to the re­cent or­der of the gov­ern­ment of In­dia ban­ning the Khal­is­tan Lib­er­a­tion Force un­der the Un­law­ful Ac­tiv­i­ties Pre­ven­tion Act, 1967.

I am not sur­prised that KLF has been banned by MHA of In­dia. I am not sur­prised that Khal­is­tan Lib­er­a­tion Force has been added into the list of 39 or­ga­ni­za­tions -all rep­re­sent­ing mi­nor­ity or eth­nic com­mu­ni­ties that have been pro­scribed by In­dia un­der the dra­con­ian Un­law­ful Ac­tiv­i­ties and Pre­ven­tion Act (UAPA) 1967.

I am also not sur­prised that no one will ques­tion as to why Ab­hi­nav Bharat has not been pro­scribed de­spite its di­rect in­volve­ment in a se­ries of bomb blasts tar­get­ing the Mus­lim pop­u­la­tion in In­dia.

I am def­i­nitely sur­prised that the Khal­is­tan Lib­er­a­tion Force- the KLF, which had hogged head­lines over a decade was not banned un­til yes­ter­day!!

As an ac­tive par­tic­i­pant in the po­lit­i­cal af­fairs of the move­ment for Sikh free­dom over the last few decades, it is this sense of sur­prise that prompted me to give a run-up to the Khal­is­tan Lib­er­a­tion Force –KLF, in this piece.

Why has it taken the gov­ern­ment of In­dia more than three decades to pro­scribe a body which was dreaded by the In­dian po­lice and para­mil­i­tary forces?

On 27 De­cem­ber, the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia through a no­ti­fi­ca­tion of the Min­istry of Home Af­fairs, has banned the Khal­is­tan Lib­er­a­tion force, the Sikh armed group set by a Sikh war­rior Av­tar Singh Brahma in 1986. The gov­ern­ment no­ti­fi­ca­tion al­ludes to the fresh ac­tiv­i­ties pur­port­edly of this body, but nei­ther the no­ti­fi­ca­tion nor the of­fi­cial ver­sion of the MHA an­swers my ques­tions.

The sud­den an­nounce­ment of the ban on the or­gan­i­sa­tion by the gov­ern­ment of In­dia has amus­ingly sur­prised many! Does this mean that the or­gan­i­sa­tion was not banned till date?

Af­ter his mar­tyr­dom, the ba­ton was passed to a fear­less com­man­der, Gur­jant Singh Budhs­ingh­wala, who in­dulged in dar­ing op­er­a­tions against the po­lice, se­cu­rity forces and anti-Sikh politi­cians.  When he at­tained mar­tyr­dom in an en­counter in July 1992 in Lud­hi­ana, the reins were passed on to Dr Pri­tam Singh Sekhon, who was known for his in­tel­lect and brav­ery.  Af­ter the sup­pres­sion of the Khal­is­tan armed strug­gle and more so af­ter the demise of Dr Sekhon, in the mid­dle of 1995, KLF turned dor­mant. KLF first aligned with an­other mil­i­tant group Bab­bar Khalsa in 1987-88 and sub­se­quently be­came an im­por­tant part of Pan­thic Com­mit­tee led by Dr So­han Singh that spear­headed the armed strug­gle for Khal­is­tan.

The sud­den an­nounce­ment of the ban on the or­gan­i­sa­tion by the gov­ern­ment of In­dia has amus­ingly sur­prised many! Does this mean that the or­gan­i­sa­tion was not banned till date? It is made to un­der­stand that now the ban has been im­posed on the rec­om­men­da­tion of the NIA –the Na­tional In­ves­ti­ga­tion Agency be­cause KLF has been named as the group be­hind the tar­geted killings of Hindu lead­ers in Pun­jab.

KLF was loved and feared both.  It was a name to reckon with dur­ing the days of ac­tive in­sur­gency in Pun­jab. It is mind-bog­gling that the state chooses to ban an or­gan­i­sa­tion when the fight­ing spirit and strik­ing ca­pac­ity of its mem­bers has dras­ti­cally di­min­ished as com­pared to it was un­der the com­mand of Jathedar Brahma and Bhai Budhs­ingh­wala.

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Is it a lapse on the part of suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments?

Are the In­dian agen­cies so naive or down­right in­com­pe­tent?

How come a mil­i­tant or­ga­ni­za­tion, whose writ ran from 1986 to 1993, went with­out no­tice while all other mil­i­tant groups were banned?

I hope that the Min­istry of Home Af­fairs clears the air.