Decline
The crackdown on Sikh militant organisations by the Indian Government in the early 1990s, followed by government infiltration of the Khalistan movement and the various militant organisations respectively, greatly weakened the Babbar Khalsa, ultimately leading to the death of Sukhdev Singh Babbar (9 August 1992) and Talwinder Singh Parmar (15 October 1992). Parmar's death remained controversial, and today he is accepted to have been shot dead by Indian police during custody; the Tehelka investigation found that Indian security forces had killed him after interrogation and were ordered to destroy his confession statements, Canada's CBC network also reported that Parmar had been in police custody for some time prior to his death.
The death of Sukhdev Singh Babbar, described by India Today as “the most prominent leader since 1978” who had “an aura of invincibility”, severely weakened Babbar Khalsa.
Despite setbacks incurred in the early Nineties, Babbar Khalsa is still active under ground, although not to the extent it once was. Current leadership resides with Wadhawa Singh Babbar, with Pratik Shah as deputy Jathedar. Babbar Khalsa is suspected by the Punjab police authorities to be responsible for a bombing at the Shingar Cinema Complex in Ludhiana on October 2007, in which 7 people were killed and 32 wounded.
Read more about this topic: Babbar Khalsa
Famous quotes containing the word decline:
“We have our little theory on all human and divine things. Poetry, the workings of genius itself, which, in all times, with one or another meaning, has been called Inspiration, and held to be mysterious and inscrutable, is no longer without its scientific exposition. The building of the lofty rhyme is like any other masonry or bricklaying: we have theories of its rise, height, decline and fallwhich latter, it would seem, is now near, among all people.”
—Thomas Carlyle (17951881)
“Reckoned physiologically, everything ugly weakens and afflicts man. It recalls decay, danger, impotence; he actually suffers a loss of energy in its presence. The effect of the ugly can be measured with a dynamometer. Whenever man feels in any way depressed, he senses the proximity of something ugly. His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage, his pridethey decline with the ugly, they increase with the beautiful.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900)
“My opposition [to interviews] lies in the fact that offhand answers have little value or grace of expression, and that such oral give and take helps to perpetuate the decline of the English language.”
—James Thurber (18941961)