Shrines in Punjab to get CCTV

By ASIT JOLLY

CHANDIGARH

June 2: With Sikh radicals stepping up their separatist rhetoric and proclaiming alliances with Islamists ahead of the 24th anniversary of Operation Bluestar, the Punjab police has advised managements of all major religious shrines to install CCTV systems to monitor potential terrorist saboteurs. An initiative of the Jalandhar police, which will be extended to other districts in the border state, CCTV systems are already being installed at prominent Doaba shrines including the historic Devi Talab Mandir, the Geeta Mandir in Jalandhar’s Model Town and in Nurmahal at the headquarters of the often controversial Baba Ashutosh Maharaj.

The CCTV surveillance will cover all entry and exit points as well as vehicle parking areas around these shrines to monitor subversives amongst the flow of devotees. Jalandhar’s senior superintendent of police, Arpit Shukla told this newspaper that the additional surveillance was being deployed both in tandem with the need to step up security before the anniversary of Operation Bluestar as well as in the wake of the serial bombings in Jaipur.

Though not specific to Jalandhar or elsewhere in Punjab, intelligence inputs have warned of possible terrorists strikes by recently reactivated Sikh groups including the Babbar Khalsa International and the International Sikh Youth Federation.

Investigations into the Shingar multiplex bombing targeting migrant Hindu and Muslim workers in Ludhiana in 2007, have indicated sustained efforts by these groups to revive terrorist activities in Punjab.

In fact more recent strikes, like the assassination attempt on Dera Sacha Sauda chief in early 2008, suggest a pattern wherein the terrorists have essentially hit, attempted to or planned to hit targets identified by overground separatists groups.

For instance, the Ludhiana bombing followed an ascending radical rhetoric against migrants in Punjab.

Similarly, multiple attempts were made on the Dera chief’s life after hard line clerics and groups set a price on his head.