From: gnreddy@cbnewsf.att.com (G.Narotham Reddy)
Subject: India - Punjab Violence Eases as Police Claim Successes
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 92 18:00:13 GMT


Source	: The New York Times
Date	: Aug 31, 1992
Country	: India

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Punjab Violence Eases as Police Claim Successes

Fear is easing in some parts of the sate like the
Patiala region where for the first time in years, cars and trucks
travel the highways at night.

By Sanjoy Hazarika - special to the New York Times

Patiala, India - Heavily armed policemen stormed a comfortable villa
in this crowded city in early August and captured India's most wanted
Sikh militant.
	A few hours later, the police announced that the arrested man,
Sukhdev Singh Babbar, who had posed successfully as an affluent
builder here for four years, was dead.
	The circumstances of his death are still unclear.  At first,
the police said he was killed in a gun battle outside the city.  Now
the police say that he was unarmed and that he killed himself by
biting on a cyanide capsule.  A third report said that Mr.Babbar was
shot by the police after his capture.
	In the last 10 years, thousands of people have died in the
rebellion by militant Sikhs in the Punjab, where dissidents and
security forces have engaged in increasingly brutal actions, often
trapping ordinary citizens in the violence.
	The followers of Mr.Babbar killed about 50 men, women and
children, all relatives of policemen, to avenge his death, police
officials said.  
	These retaliatory killings have since stopped.

	Mr.Babbar was the president of the Babbar Khalsa International,
the best armed, most feared and most powerful of dozens of the
militant groups in Punjab state that are fighting for an independent
state for Sikhs, known as Khalistan.
	"There is a realization that the movement for Khalistan has
done more damage than good to Sikh interests," said Kanwaljit singh,
the secretary of one faction of the Akali Dai, the mainstream Sikh
party.
	Punjab's police chief, Kanwar Pal Singh Gill, said security
forces had seized the initiative in the confrontation with the
militants after the slaying of Mr.Babbar and several other militant
leaders. But in the past the militant leaders have been able to
regroup in the face of such police successes.
	"It does not mean that terrorism is ending but we have
succeeded in bringing about substantial containment," Mr.Gill said in
an interview at his heavily guarded home in chandigarh, the state
capital.  Mr.Gill, a veteran of anti-insurgency campaigns in India's
north-east, said that security successes had left many young militants
leaderless.
	Kuldip Singh Sibia, who was a key figure in the Babbar Khalsa
International and organized financial support for the group out of
Britain, acknowledged that the militants were feeling the pressure.
Mr.Sibia, a British citizen who surrendered to the state autorities
this month, told a reporter that major militant leaders wanted to
negotiate a settlement of their demands.
	chief minister Beant Singh, the state's top elected official
said he was prepared to talk to the militants if they would surrender
their weapons and agree to a settlement within the Constitution.  No
group has yet responded positively to his demands, although Mr.Sibia
said that the militants were under pressure from followers to
negotiate.
	Mr.Sibia said that he slipped into India from Nepal after
travelling first from Bangkok to Pakistan and then to Katmandu.
	He said he had been authorized by Babbar Khalsa International
leaders and Pakistani intelligence officials to organize new routes
for smuggling arms to the Sikh groups.  Pakistan has denied Indian
allegations of armed assistance to Punjabi and Kashmiri militants.
	The election of a Congress party government in the sate last
June ended nearly five years of rule from New Delhi.  The party, which
also governs in New Delhi under Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, won the
state elections despite a boycott called by the militants. Most of the
Akali Dal groups and Sikh voters stayed away, making the Congress
victory easier.
	"The level of terrorism has dropped to 50 per cent of what
existed before we came to power," said Chief Minister singh.
Mr.Singh, a white-bearded Sikh who wears sunglasses even indoors said
that "the political process has been restores."
	Fear, too, is easing in some parts of the sate like the
Patiala region where for the first time in years, cars and trucks
travel the highways at night.

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