Shiv Sena (Taksali) leader Sudhir Suri was killed in broad daylight on Friday in Amritsar, Punjab. He and others from his outfit were sitting on a dharna outside the local Gopal Mandir on Majitha Road, a busy market area of the city. They were protesting against the temple management after some broken murtis were found dumped in garbage near the temple.

The shooting happened in broad daylight in front of gun-toting Punjab Police personnel assigned for Suri’s security and other police officials who had arrived to defuse the protest. The accused Sandeep Singh aka Sunny shot 5 bullets, at least two of which struck Suri, with his licensed .32 bore pistol. Suri was rushed to hospital but could not be saved.

Singh, who owns a garment shop in the market area where the shooting took place, fled to a nearby house for cover. He was later arrested and the murder weapon seized. According to video footage, Sandeep Singh was standing in the crowd where the Shiv Sena protest was taking place. He wore a bluish-grey checked shirt, blue jeans and a red turban. He shot Suri at point black range.

Some of Suri’s supporters fired shots at the house in which Singh had taken shelter. They also alleged that the police tried to help the accused to escape, adding that Suri’s official security guards did not step in to save the leader.

A close aide of Suri, Ashok Sharma said that Khalistani groups were behind the murder of Suri.

“Sudhir Suri would get threats to his life every day… We had asked the Punjab government to increase his security. He has been murdered by Khalistani terrorists,” Sharma said. Shiv Sena (Taksali) has given the call for a bandh in Punjab on November 5.

Punjab Director General of Police Gaurav Yadav told media to avoid ‘rumour-mongering’ as Punjab has an ‘exemplary record of communal harmony’. He refused to comment on the attacker’s links with any extremist organizations.

Sudhir Suri was very vocal against radical, pro-Khalistan Sikh outfits and had also been charged in alleged hate speech cases. He was on the hit list of Khalistani terror outfits since 2016 and thus provided police security, as per reports. Central agencies had issued a specific alert about Suri and said that Pakistan’s ISI had assigned Randhawa Neeta and other Lahore-based groups to kill him.

Sandeep Singh’s recent posts on Instagram and Facebook contained videos of hate-mongering Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh, president of pro-Khalistani organization WPD (Waris Punjab De). WPD was founded by Deep Sidhu, a Punjabi actor who was key accused in the storming and desecration of Red Fort in Delhi by so-called farmers on Republic Day, 2021.

Dubai-based Amritpal Singh is said to be the ISI’s latest pick for taking up the mantle of deceased Khalistani terrorist Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.

As per a report, a car allegedly belonging to Sandeep Singh sported a round poster of a recent rally by WPD’s Amritpal Singh. Intriguingly, the windshield also bore marks of a removed sticker of the Punjab Police’s logo. Photos of another Shiv Sena leader Harish Singla and Christian pastor Bajinder Singh were recovered from the car, indicating that they could be next on the hit list.

Targeted killings of Hindu activists & leaders like Brig. Gagneja, Ravinder Gosain, Amit Sharma, Durga Prasad Gupta, and other religious figures like pastor Sultan Masih, Dera Sacha Sauda follower Manohar Lal have been going on for many years now in Punjab. There have been several attempted murders as well – a Hindu priest Kamaldeep Sharma was shot at and critically injured. Ordinary Sikhs and other citizens have also not been spared – garment shop owner Tejinder alias Pinka and communist leader Balwinder Singh Sandhu, a Shaurya Chakra awardee, were shot dead.

Former IPS officer and AAP MLA from Amritsar North, Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh said he felt ashamed at the brazen murder and demanded the commissioner be dismissed as the “police system had totally collapsed”. Singh said he had alerted AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann about the deteriorating law and order situation but it was up to them to act.

Conclusion

The situation in Punjab has been slipping out of control for many years. Khalistani propaganda has now become so mainstreamed that ridicule and demonization of Hindus and their Dharma is a common trope in Punjabi music and on social media.

Hinduphobic, pejorative slurs like ‘gau mutra drinker’ and other stereotypes of ‘weak, cowardly’ Hindus, straight out of the Pakistan Army-ISI jihadi playbook, are being normalized among Sikh youth. Sikh religious bodies like SGPC have only furthered the Hindu-Sikh divide and turned a blind eye to increasing Sikh radicalism.

Here are some nauseating reactions to Sudhir Suri’s murder –

Supremacist attitudes of many Jatt Sikhs towards Hindus, particularly those from UP & Bihar pejoratively labelled ‘bhaiyas’ who toil hard in their farms as migrant laborers, are being openly manifested. Such attitudes also fueled the anti-farm reform protests where a common refrain was “govt wants to reduce our status to that of UP/Bihar”.

Of course, Khalistani infiltration of those protests, and the way social media toolkits were prepared by Anglosphere-based Khalistani outfits, was seen by everybody, however much left-liberal media denies it. Even rational Sikh voices who are fearlessly speaking against the hatred and separatism that has taken deep root in the diaspora, are largely ignored by our mainstream media.

Predatory Christian missionaries, especially Pentecostals, have taken advantage of this socio-religious-political chaos in Punjab to accelerate their soul harvesting business using quack healing and other illegal/unethical means.

Lawlessness by Nihang Sikhs is another indicator of how volatile the situation in Punjab really is, and AAP’s election victory earlier this year has further emboldened Khalistani elements. Our democracy has allowed a pro-Khalistani ideologue like Simranjit Singh Mann to not just become an MP, but openly spew his separatist rhetoric! The center has also failed to signal its strength and resolve – first by removing 312 Sikh foreign radicals from a travel blacklist, and then by buckling in front of the lawless, violent protests by farmer lobbies from Punjab, Haryana and western UP.

Hindus and other ordinary citizens living in Punjab need to organize and stand up for their rights, otherwise things could easily slide back to the dark days witnessed in the 1980s. The Indian government also needs to tell USA and other Western nations in no uncertain terms that their doublespeak of pretending to be democratic allies, while harbouring Khalistanis and other Breaking India elements is not going to fly anymore.