3 BJP leaders get death threats in letter sent to party HQ in Chandigarh

“The letter was received at the Punjab BJP office in Chandigarh on July 1. It was addressed to me by name. I recently returned from abroad and yesterday Tajinder Sran opened the letter. He told me on phone about the threats in the letter and a powder, which may be RDX. The powder has been handed over to Chandigarh police and they will get it examined,” Punjab BJP general secretary Parminder Brar told The Indian Express on Tuesday.

The handwritten letter included slogans like “Khalistan Zindabad” and “Pakistan Zindabad”. It also mentions pro-Khalistani terrorists Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was shot dead in Canada in June 2023 by unknown assailants); Avtar Singh Khanda, who died in a Canada hospital, a few days before Nijjar’s killing; Paramjit Singh Panjwar, who was shot dead in Lahore by two unidentified motorcycle- borne gunmen in May 2023; Maulana Rahim Ullah Tariq Karachi; a Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist shot dead in Karachi by unknown people in November 2023; Bashir Ahmad Peer, a self-styled commander of terror outfit Hizbul Mujahideen who was gunned down by unknown assailants in Rawalpindi in February 2023; and Maulana Ziaur Rahman, a cleric associated with terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba who was shot dead by unknown bike-borne men in Gulistan-e-Jauhar, Karachi, as he was on his nightly stroll.

The letter accused Brar and Sran of “interfering in Sikh religion” by toeing the BJP and the RSS line and threatened them to quit the BJP. It also accused the duo of resorting to “nefarious designs” to “vitiate communal harmony between Sikhs and Muslims” and threatened to “take revenge very soon”. It said that Manjinder Sirsa also spoke the RSS language and would be taught a “lesson”.

In an apparent reference to Srinivasulu, the letter warned that “Srinivas of BJP” should leave Punjab, saying “We have no enmity with him, but we will not spare those who betrayed the Panth”. It also said that gurdwaras in Delhi and Guru Sahib “will be soon released from the RSS”.