NEW DELHI, Nov 4: Amritsar-born Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the chief of the banned United States-based “Sikhs for Justice” (SFJ) outfit, has released a new video in which he is seen issuing a threat to people planning to travel via Air India on November 19, the 107th birth anniversary of the former prime minister Indira Gandhi, saying that their “lives would be in danger.”
“We are asking the Sikh people not to fly via Air India on November 19. There will be a global blockade. On November 19, don’t travel by Air India or your life will be in danger,” Pannun said in the video that surfaced on social media. Mrs Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh security guards as a revenge for flushing out alleged Khalistani terrorists from the Golden Temple.
Pannun further claimed that Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport would remain shut on November 19 and that its name would be changed. The Khalistani terrorist highlighted that this was the same day on which the final match of the ongoing cricket World Cup would take place.
On October 10, Pannun, who had threatened Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “learn a lesson” from the Israel-Palestine war lest a similar “reaction” unravels in India. “People under illegal occupation from Punjab to Palestine will react. And violence begets violence,” he had said in a previous video message.
Pannun has been on the National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) scanner since 2019 when the probe agency filed its first case against him. He has been accused of playing a primary role in advocating and commissioning terror acts and activities, and spreading fear and terror in Punjab and other parts of India via his threats and intimidation strategies.
Non-bailable warrants of arrest were issued against Pannun by a special NIA court on February 3, 2021, and he was declared a “Proclaimed Offender” (PO) on November 29 last year.
(Manas Dasgupta)