With ISI backing, Khalistani elements targets author of ‘Khalistan – a project of Pakistan’

A group of pro-Khalistani elements have condemned a report published in September by Canadian journalist and researcher Terry Milewski, titled ‘Khalistan — a project of Pakistan’, which objectively deconstructed the Khalistani terror network and traced its roots to Pakistan. 

Khalistan supporters, in their effort to delegitimize the report have floated a website on 15 September and uploaded a public letter addressed to the Ottawa based Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI), criticizing the report and expressing their ‘concern’ on it.

“A close look of the website suggests that “www.sikhscholarsresponse.com” was registered on 15 September and the letter was uploaded on it on the same day.

Most strikingly, 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. This reflects that the website was created solely for the purpose of uploading this letter.

The letter has asked MLI to reevaluate its “decision to publish such vitriolic content under your institute’s name”. The letter has further expressed, “we are concerned to read a report that contains a litany of conclusory statements and allegations without any substantiation”.

It is noteworthy that the letter has been signed by individuals from over a dozen organizations and institutions. Still, it failed to gain organizational credibility, highlighting that the Khalistani elements are eventually losing the already feeble support that they had amongst the civil society organization and educational institutions.

Also, most of the signatories out of 53 individuals endorsing the letter are infamous for taking an anti-India position and indulging in anti-India activities in the West.

Reportedly, the letter was drafted by Harjeet Singh Grewal — Instructor of Sikh Studies at Department of Classics and Religion, University of Calgary. It is believed that he reached out to other signatories under the guidance of the Pakistani ISI, as a number of the signatories have strong connections to Pakistan missions in the West, especially in Canada.

The letter has also been signed by pro-Khalistan Indra Prahst, who has strong connections with Pakistani Consulate in Vancouver.

Another signatory who underlines the organic linkages of Khalistani extremists with Pakistan is Hafsa Kanjwal, who has pro-separatist sentiments and has been opposing India’s position on Jammu and Kashmir and has been contributing to the anti-India advocacy campaigns of Pakistani mission.

“The Pakistani connection of this letter provides the rationale for the silence of Khalistani elements to question human rights violations of minorities in Pakistan, including the targeted attacks on the Sikh minorities. They have kept mum over exclusion of the larger territory of so called ‘Khalistan’ that falls in Pakistan. In fact, all of Pakistani Punjab comes under this landmass. However, under ISI’s pressure, they have failed to include that part in the map of Khalistan,” said an official deployed in Central Security.

In another interesting development of attacking the dissenting voices, pro-Khalistani elements along with the ISI proxies are attacking a New Delhi based non-profit organization — Law and Society Alliance (LSA).

As soon as the organization broke the news of organizing a webinar on the said report and invited Terry Milewski to deliver a talk, these elements began attacking the Twitter handle of LSA and mass reporting it to bring it down. They also attacked the Twitter handle of co-organizer of the event, Defence Capital.

“The pro-Khalistani forces are trying to silence the voice of Indians and other nationalities who raise their voice against the Khalistani terrorism and how Pakistan is the conspirator of this terrorism and separatism movement,” said N. C. Bipindra, Chairman of Law and Society Alliance and Editor of Defence Capital.