By Shivam Patel
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the goal of a foiled homicide plot in america, is an immigration legal professional charged with terrorism in India for advocating separatism and holding referendums abroad to carve out an impartial Sikh state.
U.S. authorities have thwarted an try and kill him and have issued a warning to India over considerations that New Delhi was concerned, prompting Indian officers to specific “surprise and concern” in response, U.S. officers stated on Wednesday.
That is the second diplomatic incident that has thrust New Delhi within the world highlight after Canada accused it of being linked to the killing of a Sikh separatist in Vancouver in June.
SOCIAL MEDIA ADVOCACY
Pannun is finest recognized for his video messages shared on social media, usually described as threatening in the direction of Indian leaders and the federal government, principally pictured in darkish formalwear and white-bearded.
He says he was a senior programs analyst at finance agency Merrill Lynch whereas attending regulation school in New York from 1997 to 2002, after a grasp’s in enterprise administration.
Most lately, India’s anti-terror company filed a case towards him on prices associated to terrorism and conspiracy, stating that he threatened flag service Air India’s passengers in a video that their lives have been at risk.
Pannun, who says he has U.S. and Canadian citizenship, informed Reuters his message was to boycott the airline, “not bomb” it. He added the case towards him was “frivolous” and meant to hinder his new referendum in 2024 within the U.S. on establishing Khalistan, the state demanded by separatists.
He stated that the referendum initiative has been launched to “peacefully advance the cause of liberating the Indian-held Punjab (state)”.
Some Sikh separatists say they’re searching for an impartial homeland to guard their tradition and faith in Hindu majority India.
CRIMINAL CASES
New Delhi listed Pannun as an “individual terrorist” in 2020 for what it stated is difficult India’s safety by financing violence and issuing appeals to “Punjab-based gangsters and youth” to battle for Khalistan.
An arrest warrant has been issued towards him in India, the place he was born within the northern state of Punjab.
Pannun’s recognition has been primarily restricted to some sections of the Sikh diaspora overseas, as he organised Khalistan referendums through which he says greater than 1.3 million have voted in Britain, Italy, Australia and Canada.
In January 2021, throughout a serious farmers’ protests in India, the anti-terror company registered a case towards Pannun for an alleged conspiracy to incite revolt towards the Indian authorities, media reported.
Pannun says he has filed authorized and prison circumstances towards the Indian authorities’s alleged actions towards Sikh separatists throughout Nineteen Nineties and human rights violations throughout riots in Gujarat state in 2002.
‘DEATH TO INDIA’
Pannun advocates for Khalistan via his Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) group, based in 2007, of which he’s common counsel. The group was labelled an “unlawful association” by India in 2019, citing its assist for extremist and secessionist actions.
The SFJ calls itself a human rights advocacy group, with workplaces in Washington, London and Toronto. Pannun’s immigration regulation agency says it has workplaces in Queens, New York, and Fremont, California. He says he’s additionally a defence lawyer.
In September, the SFJ launched a “death to India – Balkanize” marketing campaign to “shut down Indian missions” globally after a diplomatic row between Canada and India over the separatist killing.
India sees the decades-long however now fringe demand for Khalistan as a safety menace resulting from a violent insurgency within the Nineteen Seventies and Nineteen Eighties by Sikh militants in Punjab, through which tens of hundreds have been killed.
(This story has been refiled to repair typos in paragraphs 14 and 16)
