WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD – A leading pro-Khalistan British Sikh organisation’s leader has revealed that a prominent Pakistani journalist working for Pakistan’s GEO News and its papers faces life threats from the Indian state over his coverage of Khalistan issues and the pro-Khalistan Sikh activists.
In an interview on the Sikh Channel called Akaal TV, Sikh Federation UK’s leader Dabinderjit Singh revealed that the Metropolitan Police is aware of the threats to Mr Murtaza Ali Shah’s life from the Indian state. The Sikh Federation revealed this in a tweet and a video interview.
Murtaza Ali Shah, Geo News
Dabinderjit Singh, who is a retired civil servant and founded the Sikh federation ten years ago, revealed that the GEO TV journalist is on the Indian hit list due to his coverage of Sikh issues and particularly his coverage of Khalistan Referendum and Sikhs For Justice (SFJ), a group banned in India.
“Murtaza Ali Shah covers Sikh issues for GEO TV but is not a Sikh. In particular, Murtaza Shah has been covering the Khalistan Referendum organised by Sikhs For Justice in the UK, Canada, Switzerland, and Italy. He has been reaching to these places from London for coverage,” he said, linking his journalistic work to the threat.
India is known for targeting those who report on Kashmir and Khalistan issues. Last year, India banned Murtaza Ali Shah’s social media accounts in India along with other prominent journalists, including Rana Ayyub and C J Werleman.
Dabinderjit Singh said that the UK’s intelligence centre “GCHQ monitors everything, and it must be in their knowledge what threats exist” for activists. It must be in their knowledge what threats existed for Khanda, the Sikh activist who died suddenly in Birmingham last year a few days after Indian media reported he was on India’s hit list.
Singh said GCHQ “must have monitored the hit list India has issued. They must have also received intelligence from Canada and their allies regarding what India is getting up to. Sikhs in the UK are the number one target of all the countries where Sikhs live, and this has been the case for nearly 40 years.
In 1984, even India was in touch with the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher, asking her to arrest Sikhs involved in protests. The UK intelligence has 40 years of experience. In the last few months, Canadian and Pakistani intelligence have released papers showing that India is involved in terrorism abroad, including murders inside Pakistan, such as the killing of Paramjit Singh Panjwar.
Paramjit Singh Panjwar, one of India’s most wanted men, was killed in Lahore on May 6 last year.
In a high-profile press conference on June 25th this year, Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Muhammad Syrus Qazi said Pakistan has “credible evidence” that links Indian agents to the killings of two Pakistani citizens on Pakistani soil.
“These are killings-for-hire cases involving a sophisticated international set-up spread over multiple jurisdictions,” he said about the killings of Shahid Latif in Azad Kashmir during morning prayers and Muhammad Riaz, who was killed outside a mosque in the city of Sialkot in Punjab. Qazi said the method of the killings was similar to cases in Canada and the United States. The Pakistani official produced evidence showing that Indian agents Ashok Kumar Anand and Yogesh Kumar had recruited the killer, Muhammad Abdullah Ali, using the social media platform Telegram.
Intelligence agencies of Canada, the UK, America and Pakistan have issued warnings to pro-Khalistan activists in the last few months that they face threats to their lives from the Indian state agents.
The Canadian govt last year openly accused the Indian govt of killing Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was the local leader of the Khalistan Referendum and SFJ, on Canadian soil in July last year. In November last year, the US State Dept said its intelligence had foiled a plot by the Indian state to assassinate SFJ founder and pro-Khalistan campaigner Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York. The murder-for-hire plot expose has shocked the world.
In June last year, pro-Khalistan exiled leader Avtar Singh Khanda died mysteriously in a Birmingham hospital. His family have accused India of killing him for his political views, and they have called for justice from the UK govt.
The Times newspaper reported this month that the UK intelligence had issued Osman Warning letters to Sikh activists in West Midlands are of threat to their lives from the Indian state agents.
The Sikh Federation has blamed the current UK govt under Rishi Sunak and the previous gov for appeasing the Hindutva regime.
