Chandigarh
The first session of the third and final day of 4th Military Literature Festival-2020 was kick-started with discussion on ‘The Khalistan Conspiracy by GBS Sidhu’, in which the panelists advocated that all issues in those days, must have been addressed politically not forcefully.
The session was moderated by Former IPS Officer GS Aujla meanwhile book’s Author GBS Sidhu, a former RAW officer along with former DGP MPS Aulakh and one of most senior-most journalists Jagtar Singh, who has covered this state for many decades, were eminent panelists.
GBS Sidhu, who played a key role behind the inclusion of Sikkim into Indian Territory, taking part in the deliberations, remembered the aspects related to rising of militancy in Punjab and abroad especially Canada and other European countries where Sikhs migrated during the 1970s. He threw light about the efforts of Union Government that time to settle the issues revolving around the militancy.
GS Aujla said that the ‘issue’ was not addressed at the political level at that time and history gives us a great lesson that political will was lacking to solve the issue during the period.Former DGP MPS Aulakh who had held prominent positions in intelligence Bureau illustrated the series of events of that period.
Senior Journalists Jagtar Singh who also wrote the book ‘Rivers on Fire: Khalistan Struggle’, talked about militancy period which took 40000 lives and said Khalistan narrative had affected the relations with countries like Canada in past and the issue persists even today.He said that the Government of Indian should release the papers related to that period for a clear picture.
