Centre bans Khalistan Liberation Force

Smita Sharma 
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, December 27

A year after attacks against RSS leaders and attempts at revival of militancy with support of ISI were traced to the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF), the Ministry of Home Affairs has now banned it. 

In a notification issued on Wednesday, MHA added KLF as the 40th organisation to the banned list which also includes four other Sikh extremist groups - Babbar Khalsa International, Khalistan Commando Force, Khalistan Zindabad Force and International Sikh Youth Federation. 

KLF has been banned under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for committing and promoting various acts of terrorism in India as well as recruitment of youth for terrorist activities in the country. 

"The KLF was engaged in killing of innocent persons and police officers, several bombings on civilian targets in India,collection of funds for terror activities through extortion, kidnappings, bank robberies, etc., and assassination attempts of important government functionaries, says the official circular. 

According to sources, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) gave detailed recommendations earlier to ban the organisation that came into existence in 1986 with the objective of establishing an independent Khalistan. A five-member KLF module was busted by the Punjab Police which resulted in resolving two cases relating to planting of IEDs in Nabha. 

Another KLF module was busted in Gurdaspur and four terror accused arrested for conspiring to disrupt communal harmony in the state by targeting a specific community.

Earlier, on November 7, 2014, Jalandhar police busted a KLF/Khalistan Zindabad Force module of four members and arrested the KLF chief along with legal arms and ammunition.   

In its proposal, the NIA claimed that the KLF, revived by now dead Harminder Singh Mintoo in 2010 is being run by UK and Pakistan based terrorists with funding from several countries, including UK, UAE, Pakistan and Australia . The NIA in its charge sheet named some NRIs and British national Jagtar Singh Johal alias Jaggi for conspiring to carry out attacks in India.

KLF is blamed for eight attacks between February 2016 and October 2017 to disrupt the law and order situation in Punjab and revive militancy in the state.