Refugee Review Tribunal AUSTRALIA RRT RESEARCH RESPONSE Research Response Number: IND32623 Country: India Date: 27 November 2007 Keywords: India – Punjab – Khalistan Liberation Army (KLA) – Akali Dal (Mann) This response was prepared by the Research & Information Services Section of the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the RRT within time constraints. This response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. This research response may not, under any circumstance, be cited in a decision or any other document. Anyone wishing to use this information may only cite the primary source material contained herein. Questions 1. Is there any information on the Khalistan Liberation Army (KLA)? What kind of organisation was it and how did it achieve its aims and objectives? Was it involved in violent acts? Did it have an organisational structure with elected office holders for various districts? 2. Is there any recent information on ordinary Akali Dal (Mann) party members being arrested simply for being members of the party and supporting the party? RESPONSE 1. Is there any information on the Khalistan Liberation Army (KLA)? What kind of organisation was it and how did it achieve its aims and objectives? Was it involved in violent acts? Did it have an organisational structure with elected office holders for various districts? No reports giving a detailed description of the Khalistan Liberation Army (KLA) were found in a search of the available sources. The KLA is briefly mentioned in a number of reports and media articles; however, the information contained is often variable. In general, the KLA appears to have been a secessionist militant group operating in Punjab during the 1980s and 1990s. Some sources describe the KLA as either “loosely affiliated with”, or a wing of, the Khalistan Commando Force (KCF). Various articles in the 1980s and 1990s report on violent activities of the KLA, and a number of alleged commanders of the group are mentioned in these articles. In 2006, sources contacted by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) stated that the “KLA was comprised of only a few members”. No other information on the specific organisational structure of the KLA was found. Generally, the available information indicates that the organisational structure of the more than 20 militant groups operating in Punjab was largely decentralised. According to some sources, including DFAT advice from 1992, most Khalistan militant groups operated under the authority of umbrella organisations such as the various “Panthic Committees”, which were decision making bodies. For a time the KCF drew together a number of small militant groups and operated as the military wing of the Panthic Committees’ Khalistan movement; however, the KCF later splintered again into a number of smaller groups. General information on militant groups, the KCF and the Panthic Committees is included in this response. (For mentions of the affiliation between the KLA and the KCF, see: Amnesty International 1995, Human Rights are Women’s Rights, March, ACT 77/01/95 http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/women/womeneng.txt – Accessed 26 November 2007 – Attachment 1 and ‘Suspected Sikh Terrorist Leader Arrested’ 1986, The Record, 3 September – Attachment 2; for DFAT advice from 2006 on the KLA, see: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade 2006, DFAT Report 520 – RRT Country Information Request IND30287, 9 August – Attachment 12; for information on militant groups and Panthic Committees, see: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade 1992, DFAT Report No. ND84486 – India: Punjab Sikhs: Militant Groups, 6 July – Attachment 3; for information on the organisational structure of the KCF, see: Anil G.C., ‘Persistence and Death of Intense Armed Secessionist Movements: An Analysis of the War for Khalistan and the First round of the War for Eelam’ (undated), Columbia University website http://www.columbia.edu/cu/polisci/pdf- files/apsa_gc.pdf – Accessed 30 October 2006 – Attachment 4; for background on the Khalistan movement, see: Weiss, M. 2002, ‘The Khalistan Movement in Punjab’, Yale Center for International & Area Studies website, 25 June http://www.yale.edu/macmillan/globalization/punjab.pdf – Accessed 7 November 2003 – Attachment 5). The information found on the KLA was quite disparate. The group was variously described as follows: A 1995 Amnesty International report describes the KLA as loosely affiliated to the Khalistan Commando Force. A September 1986 article states that “[t]he Khalistan Liberation Army is a wing of the Khalistan Commando Force, the most powerful terrorist group”, while a December 1986 article in The Times mentions “[t]he Khalistan Liberation Force, a new breakaway faction of the Khalistan Liberation Army” (Amnesty International 1995, Human Rights are Women’s Rights, March, ACT 77/01/95 http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/women/womeneng.txt – Accessed 26 November 2007 – Attachment 1; ‘Suspected Sikh Terrorist Leader Arrested’ 1986, The Record, 3 September – Attachment 2; ‘Gandhi promises action on Punjab’ 1986, The Times, 2 December – Attachment 6). A 1992 Agence France-Presse article states that “The KLA is one of the half dozen better armed Sikh separatist organisations battling for a Sikh homeland called Khalistan”, while a 1987 Reuters News article describes the KLA as “one of the smallest of 22 extremist groups fighting for an independent Sikh homeland in Punjab” (‘Indian troopers kill top Sikh militant in Punjab’ 1992, Agence France-Presse, 26 February – Attachment 7; ‘Punjab Police Kill Two Leaders Of Sikh Extremist Group’ 1987, Reuters News, 14 November – Attachment 8). A 1989 article in The New York Times reports that Atinder Pal Singh, a senior official of the Khalistan Liberation Army, had been charged in the assassination of Indira Ghandi (Hazarika, S. 1989, ‘4 Sikhs Charged In Gandhi’s Death’, New York Times, 8 April – Attachment 9). Research Difficulties There are a number of Khalistan militant groups and splinter groups. An undated list on the South Asia Terrorism Portal website includes the following: Khalistan Zindabad Force (KZF); Khalistan Commando Force (KCF); Khalistan Liberation Front (KLF); Khalistan Armed Force (KAF); Khalistan Liberation Organisation (KLO); Khalistan National Army (KNA); Khalistan Liberation Army (KLA). It may be that occasionally the names are used interchangeably in reports, accidentally or otherwise. For example, DFAT advice in 1992 expresses no knowledge of the existence of the KLA but then mentions the activities of the “Khalistan Liberation Army” when discussing the KCF (‘Terrorist Groups – Punjab’ (undated), South Asia Terrorism Portal website http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/punjab/terrorist_outfits/index.html – Accessed 26 November 2007 – Attachment 10; Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade 1992, DFAT Report No. ND84486 – India: Punjab Sikhs: Militant Groups, 6 July – Attachment 3). It should also be noted that obtaining information on the non-violent activities of these separatist groups may be affected by bias and sensationalism in media and government reports. In a 1987 journal article in Pacific Affairs, Andrew Major discusses the distorted media reporting on the Punjab crisis and the misuse of “such labels as ‘moderates,’ ‘extremists’ (sometimes ‘radicals’), ‘fundamentalists’ (sometimes ‘fanatics’), ‘terrorists,’ and ‘secessionists,’ all of which are generally prefixed by the word, ‘Sikh.’” Meredith Weiss also notes that Indira Gandhi used her access to national and international media “to consistently describe the opposition as religious fanatics who advocated secession and separatism motivated by ‘communalism’ and ‘regionalism.’” She referred more often to extremists’ than to moderates’ actions and statements to substantiate this characterization, until “In the end it became self-fulfilling prophecy” (Major, A. 1987, ‘From Moderates to Secessionists: A Who’s Who of the Punjab Crisis’, Pacific Affairs, vol. 60, no. 1, Spring, pp. 42-58 – Attachment 11; Weiss, M. 2002, ‘The Khalistan Movement in Punjab’, Yale Center for International & Area Studies website, 25 June http://www.yale.edu/macmillan/globalization/punjab.pdf – Accessed 7 November 2003 – Attachment 5). Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) advice In 1992 DFAT advised that no organisation called the Khalistan Liberation Army was known, and questioned whether claimants meant the Khalistan Liberation Force. However, in the next section, DFAT states the following in its description of the Khalistan Commando Force: Main group led by Wassan Singh Zaffarwal. This, along with the AISSF faction led by Mehta Chawla, is part of the Panthic Committee (Zaffarwal). The Khalistan Liberation Army operates out of Pakistan along the border region with Punjab and promotes and uses violence to achieve its objectives, which are unclear beyond the establishment of Khalistan. There is another faction calling itself the same name and led by Paramjit Singh Panjwar. This comes under the main Panthic Committee of Sohan Singh (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade 1992, DFAT Report No. ND84486 – India: Punjab Sikhs: Militant Groups, 6 July – Attachment 3). Later DFAT advice in 2006 confirmed that the KLA did actually exist; however, the sources referred to by DFAT claim that it only existed until 1992: Following up public source material available through the South Asia Terrorism Portal ( www.satp.org),