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Gurdwara Darbar Sahib is hub of ISI activities

The presence of an Inter-Services Intelligence unit in a Pakistan gurdwara just seven kilometres across the international border from the Indian town of Dera Baba Nanak has provided the Border Security Force the first tangible evidence of the Pakistani agency operating in tandem with the recently-constituted Pakistan Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee.

Top intelligence officer S K Datta told journalists yesterday that the unit was set up in gurdwara Dera Sahib, also known as Darbar Sahib, in Kartarpur village of Narowal district of Pakistan in March this year.

He said Wadahwa Singh of Babbar Khalsa International and Parmjit Singh Panjwar of Khalistan Commando Force visited the gurdwara twice in July and have since been making frequent visits to Dera Sahib. Both the Lahore-based terrorist leaders have been under immense pressure from the ISI to revive terrorist violence in Punjab, now that the Indian security forces would be fully stretched to ensure peaceful conduct of the Lok Sabha elections, he added.

The BSF's Punjab frontier Inspector General A S Aulakh said the ISI was already operating 24 terrorist training camps in the west Punjab province of Pakistan.

Datta said that since the PGPC is headed by a former chief of The ISI, ''we have to chalk out our strategy to counter the strategic alliance between the ISI and PGMC.''

Since the PGMC chairman is also the chairman of Pakistan's Afaq Board, which has been managing the gurdwaras' properties since Partition, it is easier for him to arrange an interface between extremists from Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir and possibly Afghanistan as well.

Datta said Wadhawa and Panjwar had also sought the services of their ISI controllers for active operational cooperation with terrorists functioning in Jammu and Kashmir.

An additional deputy inspector general of the BSF said the selection of Dera Sahib gurdwara as an ISI hub was significant because of the vulnerable Kassowal bulge in Dera Baba Nanak sub-sector.

He said the 16 kilometre-long bulge lacked depth and became very difficult to traverse during the monsoon when most of its 32 square kilometres area is flooded by rain water in the Basantar nullah which runs almost parallel to the six Border Observation Posts of the BSF along the perimeter of the Kassowal bulge.

Datta said maintaining the BOPs during the rainy season becomes a logistical nightmare as supplies from across the Ravi flowing in the rear of these posts diminishes. Ghania Ke Bet, the only inhabited village in the area, is a virtual island, surrounded by the Basantar, Ravi and the border on three sides, leaving only one passage to the 90 families living there.

UNI

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