July 28, 2015
News
Pakistan’s envoy cancels two-day official visit to Chandigarh
Punjab, Haryana CMs refuse to host high commissioner
NEW DELHI – Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit has cancelled his official two-day visit to the Indian city of Chandigarh due to security reasons.
A source at the High Commission in New Delhi said that chief ministers of Punjab and Haryana have refused to host the high commissioner after terror incident in Gurdaspur. “My visit to Chandigarh has been cancelled as the India’s Ministry of External Affairs did not allow two of my colleagues to travel with me,” Abdul Basit said.
The high commissioner was scheduled to deliver a lecture at the University of Punjab in Chandigarh and speak at a think tank – both the events have now been cancelled as well. The development comes after a militant attack on a police station in Punjab which killed 10 people.
– Militancy in Punjab –
India’s Punjab has its own history of militancy. India fought a deadly Sikh insurgency in Punjab in the 1980s that peaked with the assassination of prime minister Indira Gandhi at the hands of her Sikh bodyguards in 1984. The attack was in retaliation against her decision to order the army to flush out ‘militants’ from the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the holiest shrine of the Sikh community.
– Demand of Khalistan for Sikhs –
Sikh groups were demanding an independent homeland for minority Sikhs at the time, which they called Khalistan. “This is probably linked to the movement of the 1990s, these are the Khalistanis who have done this,” said Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk