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Punjab's vulnerability exposed

Last Updated 27 July 2015, 21:43 IST

The terror strike on Monday morning in border state Punjab has not only come as a wake-up call for security agencies, but also exposed growing vulnerability of the state that painfully survived the dark days of militancy decades ago.

Denials apart, developments in the recent past tend to reflect the increasing susceptibility of the incumbent Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) regime in Punjab to accord weightage, if not entirely succumb, to radical sentiments.

The arrest of about two dozen Sikh militants in the last four years from many parts of the country, including Punjab, itself underlines the dire need to keep heightened vigil and exercise extreme caution.

If it turns out that the militants who attacked Dinanagar were from the Lashkar-e-Toiba or any other ISI-backed outfit, the worry is that this front in Punjab could be the next theatre of expanding terror strikes from across the border.  
  
Although many planned terror strikes — both in Punjab and abroad — were neutralised in time by various joint operations undertaken by the Punjab Police and Central security agencies in recent past, Monday's terror attack indicates a similarity in pattern to those in insurgency-hit Jammu and Kashmir, where militants hijacked vehicles and fired bullets indiscriminately before storming into an establishment, like a cantonment or a police station.

Central agencies have been hinting at the possibility of some radical pro-Khalistani supporters regrouping with Punjab in focus.  The shifting of Sikh militants like Jagtar Singh and Gurdeep Khera to Punjab jails from those like Tihar and Gulbarga in Karnataka, have in fact stoked radical sentiments.

The relocation was done with the approval of the incumbent SAD regime. For several months, an entire movement of sorts is underway in Punjab to seek the release of many Sikh ultras, a process openly support of radicals and spearheaded by an octogenarian now fasting for last several months.

Opponent parties are blaming all this on the government's appeasement policy. The SGPC, which has majority of the SAD, has constructed a memorial for those killed in Operation Blue Star inside the Golden Temple complex.

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(Published 27 July 2015, 21:43 IST)

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