Monthly Archives: August 2018

United Nations, May 12

Raking up the issue of Kashmir in the UN, Pakistan said denial of fundamental human rights to Kashmiris is an “injustice” and the failure to address prolonged outstanding disputes would be seen as “double standards” practiced by the world body.

Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN Maleeha Lodhi said at a General Assembly debate on peace and security that it is the “duty” of the global community to ensure UN resolutions on the issue are fulfilled.

Sovereign equality of nations, settlement of international disputes by peaceful means and avoidance of the use or threat of use of force are fundamental principles entrenched in the UN Charter, said the Ambassador.

The UN, however, “will be seen to practice double standards if it continues to condone military aggression or foreign interventions, ignore persisting situations of foreign occupation and denial of the right of self-determination to people living under occupation and also if it fails to address prolonged outstanding disputes,” she said here yesterday.

The Ambassador said the United Nations was created with the “very purpose to prevent and stop these injustices – injustices such as the denial of fundamental human rights to the people of Palestine and Kashmir”.

“Isn’t it our collective and solemn duty to keep the promises made to them through numerous resolutions of this body? How can this body command the respect it deserves if its own edicts are flouted,” she said.

Lodhi added that UN member nations need some introspection as to why the Security Council is “reluctant” to refer legal disputes to the International Court of Justice.

“And if we have no credible answers to these questions except the imperatives of realpolitik, the world at large will view the United Nations as little more than a political tool in the hand of the powerful few. This impression would hardly inspire trust,” she said.

Pakistan has repeatedly raised the issue of Kashmir at various UN platforms but India has strongly asserted that references to Kashmir by Pakistan in UN fora is unwarranted and constitute a clear interference in its internal affairs. — PTI

Dinesh Kumar
The relatively forgotten Operation Black Thunder-II was conducted with precision and transparency, without evoking public protest. It culminated in the surrender by terrorists in the media’s presence 10 days later, on May 18, 1988, without the security forces entering the Golden Temple complex.

Abject Surrender: Terrorists coming out of the Golden Temple, Amritsar, during Operation Black Thunder-II.

SHORTLY before 1 pm exactly 28 years ago, a militant armed with an AK-47 assault rifle inside the Golden Temple complex opened fire on Sarabdeep Singh Virk, then a DIG with the CRPF posted in Amritsar, injuring him in the jaw. Virk, who later became Punjab’s DGP, was supervising the demolition of a wall being built by terrorists outside the temple premises. The single shot, which wounded Virk, quickly escalated into an intense exchange of fire between the CRPF stationed on about a dozen pickets overlooking the temple complex and the 150 odd militants then residing inside.  The chance incident marked the beginning of the relatively forgotten Operation Black Thunder-II conducted with much precision, coordination and transparency without evoking any public protest and controversy. It culminated in the abject broad daylight surrender by terrorists in the media’s presence 10 days later, on May 18, 1988, without the security forces entering the temple complex.  This was in stark contrast to the messy June 1984 Operation Blue Star conducted four years earlier, when the Army stormed the temple complex much to the angst of the Sikh community worldwide. Then resentment led to the creation and subsequent proliferation of terror groups in the state that engaged in wanton violence. By May 1988, about 30 such groups and factions were active, with some of them brazenly occupying all rooms along the temple’s parikarma that rings the Harmandar Sahib, the sanctum sanctorum. One of the two panthic committees, an apex body of a group of terror organisations, had opened an “office of Khalistan” in room 14, where they regularly held news conferences.  On several occasions, the terrorists  registered their presence by firing in the air while the security forces silently watched a re-run of similar activities that had occurred in the temple complex prior to Operation Blue Star. Barely two months earlier, according to M.K. Dhar, former Joint Director Intelligence Bureau in his book Open Secrets, the IB had quietly begun supplying AK-47s to the then Akal Takht Jathedar Jasbir Singh Rode, who incidentally is Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale’s nephew. Rode, an IB operative who was anointed jathedar of the supSikh temporal seat, was tasked to create a Trojan Horse comprising a 15-member squad to neutralise the terrorist gangs inside the temple. In all, three consignments of AK-47s were supplied  to him prior to Operation Black Thunder-II. This measure, however,  yielded only a “limited result,” with a total three terrorists belonging to the “Khalistan Commando Force” being killed.But with Virk being shot, the IB’s operations took a back seat. On May 11, specially flown in National Security Guard (NSG) commandos took control of the CRPF pickets overlooking the complex and established a tight cordon around it. While the commandos prepared to enter the temple complex for a third time in four years (the second time was Operation Black Thunder-I on April 30, 1986, when the NSG entered following the declaration of “Khalistan” a day earlier from inside), NSG sharp shooters armed with sniper rifles equipped with night vision shot at everything that moved thus keeping all inside the temple complex pinned down. A few terrorists were shot dead in the process. In the following days, NSG commandos quickly established control over all buildings in the outer areas of the temple complex, starting with the 300-feet-high water tank, the SGPC office, Teja Singh Samundri Hall and the various niwas’. They systematically reduced the area of operation to the inner section of the temple complex after taking control of the Manji Sahib, Diwan Hall, the langar building and by neutralising terrorists occupying the two towering 18th-century Ramgharia bungas which presented a commanding view of the NSG positions and the temple complex. Interestingly, as the operation progressed, curfew was confined to just 300 yards around the temple complex during day and the Walled City at night, while life elsewhere functioned normally. At a policy level, it was decided to wear down the terrorists. Continuous sniping and heavy machine gun fire brought on the bungas day and night kept the terrorists pinned, while bringing on them psychological pressure. The sound of gun fire was punctuated by periodic declarations of unilateral ceasefire accompanied by calls for surrender which resulted in flushing out of many of the terrorists, along with all the devotees caught inside. On May 18, a final batch of 46 terrorists, who had taken refuge inside the Harmandar Sahib three days earlier, walked out with their hands in the air, marking the end of the 10-day- long siege. Three NSG commandos were injured while conducting a flushing out operation in the langar and Manji Sahib buildings. It is a different story that all the terrorists were subsequently exonerated for “lack of evidence” and that the Punjab Police had to resort to “other means” to keep them in jail. In the following days, over 40 bodies, some by then skeletons, were exhumed from the debris of the Akal Takht lying in the outer temple complex further exposing the terrorists for what they were — armed criminals and extortionists who had been misusing the temple premises to torture and kill people they suspected to be police informants or had been summoned for dispute settlement. This was one occasion when the government got an anti-terrorist operation right. Maintaining considerable transparency facilitated the security forces, especially after the terrorists entered the sanctum sanctorum — much to the consternation of the security forces which feared that the armed militants could either blow up the Harmandar Sahib or commit mass suicide. Among the several tactical and policy-level lessons from this near-forgotten chapter of India’s anti-terrorist operations is the need for preventing such situations from arising in the first place rather than allowing them to grow.

dkumar@tribunemail.com

Kolkata, May 7

Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh today said macho talk by “videogame soldiers” in the country worry him. “When I look at the security issues only one thing bothers me. When people who are videogame soldiers, not actual soldiers, start talking macho things then there is a great danger because they do not understand the consequences of war or consequences of being a soldier,” Singh, a former army chief, said without specifically referring to anyone.“We have got a lot of very macho talk at a very senior level. It can create problems, especially when your lower lot realises that you have the strength to do the things which you are being taught to,” Singh said at a seminar organised by the Centre for Eastern and North Eastern Regional Studies Kolkata (CENERS-K). Without elaborating further, Singh said: “I leave it for you to interpret.”Asked about India cancelling visa given to a Germany-based Chinese dissident Dolkun Isa, leader of World Uyghur Congress, he said India did not have any reservations on anybody visiting the country.He said it was cancelled because “there must be some problem with the visa itself”.Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju had earlier said Isa’s visa was cancelled because he had applied for the travel document in a wrong category.Singh said China was trying to be a peer competitor to the US or excel it. “Everything is geared that way. Whether it is economics or relations around the world, military or the restructuring of the military,” the minister said. India has, meanwhile, told Beijing it cannot have double standards on terrorism, said VK Singh.  — PTI

‘Can’t flip-flop on terror, China told’

• India has told China it cannot have double standards on terrorism, said VK Singh
• “You cannot say that you don’t accept or you are against terrorism and at the same time you support a leader of a terrorist outfit,” he said
• The move comes after China blocked India’s bid at the UN to ban Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar

This photo taken on January 2, 2016, shows security personnel stand guard next to a barricade outside the Indian Air Force base at Pathankot in Punjab. — Reuters file photo

New Delhi, May 3

Something is very wrong with the country’s counter-terrorism security, Parliamentary Standing Committee for Home Affairs said on Tuesday as it criticised the central government for the terrorist strike at Indian Air Force’s base in Pathankot in January.

“The committee is unable to understand how terrorists managed to reach the Pathankot airbase in spite of terror alerts being sounded well in advance. The security agencies were ill-prepared to anticipate the threats in time and counter them swiftly,” Pradip Bhattacharya, the Chairman of the Standing Committee said.

“We had a long interaction with officers at the Pathankot airbase. They said they had no information that their airbase would be attacked. He got information early in the morning, that too not from Punjab, but from the Delhi Air Force. How did it happen? Who gave this information to Delhi Air Force? These are remarkable things to find,” he said.

The base had inadequate security and poorly guarded perimeters, he said.

“We urge upon the Government of India to take this report seriously and take appropriate steps. Even today, there are very unsafe conditions at the Pathankot airbase,” he said.

Some gunmen attacked the airbase in a pre-dawn strike on January 2.  Five gunmen of the Jaish-e-Mohammed — a militant organisation based in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir — and three security personnel were killed in the standoff that followed.

A five-member Pakistani Joint Investigation Team (JIT), comprising Additional Inspector General of Police (IGP), a Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG), two Lt Colonels and one inspector, from Pakistan had visited India in March to collect, review and document physical evidences and to interview key witnesses and victims through the NIA in connection with the Pathankot attack.

On April 28, the Centre had told the Rajya Sabha that Pakistan had been clearly told that it should allow Indian investigators to visit the country for probe. — Agencies

JORHAT (ASSAM): A complaint has been lodged against seven Indian Air Force men who allegedly assaulted a waiter and the manager of a bar-cum-restaurant in Tinsukia town and fled without paying their bill. DIG (Eastern Range) Bishnu Prasad Rava on Wednesday said the owner of the bar lodged the complaint with Tinsukia police station after the alleged incident on Sunday.