Delhi has been put on high alert after receiving inputs that secessionist group Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) has given a call to cause a disruption in the operation of Air India flights from Delhi to London on 5 November, IANS reported.
“We have got inputs that Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) has threatened two Air India flights scheduled for London tomorrow. The security has been tightened,” Rajeev Ranjan, DCP, Indira Gandhi International Airport, told the news agency.
The banned group is learnt to have given the call on the 36th year of anti-Sikh riots on 5 November, to internationalise the killing of more than 30,000 Sikhs in the aftermath of former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's assassination.
Soon after the information was received, intelligence wings alerted the Delhi Police, Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and IGI authority as well as other concerned officials to foil the SFJ's plan and avoid any unprecedented incident in the national capital, reported IANS.
Air India has two flights, AI-111 and AI-531, scheduled to take off from Delhi to London on 5 November.
In a video message, SFJ General Counsel Gurpatwant Singh Pannun stated that “it is a humanitarian obligation to expose the cover up of Sikh Genocide by successive Indian regimes headed by Gandhi to Modi.”
Pannun urged the passengers of Air India to side with the victims of violence by boycotting the flights AI-111 and AI-531 on 5 November.
In his messages, Pannun accused both the Congress and BJP as two sides of the same coin for perpetuating the 1984 Sikh Genocide and then extended the impunity to leaders of death squads, IANS reported.
SFJ's call comes ahead of its earlier announcement, to hold its 'Referendum 2020' campaign in November this year.
As the group is already on the radar of National Investigation Agency (NIA), the action is being taken against its key leaders – Gurpatwant Singh Pannun and Hardeep Singh Nijjar – for their ongoing anti-India activities.
The Ministry of Home Affairs had, in the beginning of September, ordered attachment of properties of SFJ's Pannun and Nijjar, reported IANS.
Pannun is the SFJ’s General Counsel while Nijjar is ‘Referendum 2020’ Canada coordinator.
The MHA declared the SFJ as an 'unlawful association' under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act through a notification dated 10 July last year. The MHA, in a notification dated 1 July, had designated Pannun, Nijjar and seven other pro-Khalistanis as 'terrorists' as per the Act's Fourth Schedule.
Meanwhile, Britain on Tuesday, 3 November, upgraded the country's terrorism threat level from “substantial” to “severe”, after a deadly terror attack in Vienna and several attacks across France, AFP reported.
(With inputs from ANI, AFP and IANS)
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