Indian White Paper dismissed as cover-up

Press, 12 July 1984, Page 6

Indian White Paper dismissed as cover-up

NZPA-Reuter New Delhi Indian Opposition leaders yesterday described as a cover-up an official report on Sikh separatism in Punjab. The Government blamed Sikh separatists and what it called their network of supporters in Europe and North America for communal slaughter in the troubled state. The White Paper on Punjab Agitation said that Sikh groups in the United States, Canada, Britain, and West Germany had backed a Sikh campaign for a separate nation called Khalistan. Madhu Dandavate, Parliamentary leader of the Opposition Janata Party, issued a statement saying that the report was a “white cover” of what he called Government failure to deal promptly with Sikh extremism. “In time truth will pierce through the White Paper curtain and the real picture of Punjab will emerge,” he said. “A sensitive border state with a dynamic record of agricultural and industrial development would be an

obvious target for subversion. In this context the activities of groups based abroad acquire a special significance,” the White Paper said. Mr Dandavate said that the report hid the fact that India’s governing Congress (I) Party had supported the Dal Khalsa, under the leadership of the militant Sikh, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, in previous Parliamentary elections against Mrs Indira Gandhi’s opponents in Punjab. The White Paper named the Dal Khalsa as one of four Sikh organisations with representatives overseas who had backed the Sikh secessionist campaign. Bhindranwale was killed when the Indian Army stormed Amritsar’s Golden Temple on June 6 to root out Sikh extremists and their leaders.

The report said that 493 extremists and 83 soldiers had died as savage hand-to-hand fighting raged in the Sikhs’ holiest shrine, but informed sources have estimated the death toll at 1000.