Philippines deports to India suspected members of Sikh separatist group

Posted to Arab News (May 19, 2023): Philippines deports to India suspected members of Sikh separatist group (By ELLIE ABEN)

Philippine authorities deport two alleged members of a Sikh separatist group — faces blurred — at the Manila airport on May 18, 2023. (Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center)

• 3 Indian suspects were arrested in Philippines in March
• More members of militant group likely to remain in country

MANILA: The Philippines has deported two Indian nationals who were suspected of being members of a banned Sikh separatist group, a government agency said on Friday.

Three Indian men linked to the Khalistan Tiger Force, a violent group fighting for an independent Sikh state — Khalistan — were arrested by Philippine authorities in March. They were named in a red notice issued by the global police agency Interpol.

Their presence in the Philippines coincided with a massive manhunt for Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh, who earlier this year revived sentiments for the establishment of Khalistan in the Indian northern state of Punjab, which has a history of violent insurgency.

Singh was arrested in late April.

The KTF men detained in the Philippines were, according to the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center, facing charges of murder and slipped into the country on fake passports.

“Two Indian nationals who are suspected members of the terrorist organization Khalistan Tiger Force, were deported last night despite a last-ditch effort to escape,” the CICC said in a statement.

The center’s statement added that the men were escorted on board a Thai Airways flight from Manila to New Delhi via Bangkok by Philippine Bureau of Immigration agents, the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency, and the police attache of the Indian Embassy in Manila.

The CICC’s executive director, Alexander Ramos, told Arab News that the third KTF suspect remained in the Philippines, as he was still facing trial in an extortion case.

More members of the militant group are likely to have entered the Southeast Asian country. According to Ramos, they are still at large.

“There are remaining members of the group in the country,” he said. “We are ascertaining first their real identity. They used fake identities when they entered the country.”

The Khalistan movement is outlawed in India. Its armed campaign from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s prompted a controversial military operation which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people.

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