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

Sran said he lodged a complaint with Chandigarh Police on Monday. “The issue is being examined and action will be taken as per law,” Chandigarh Director General of Police (DGP) Surendra Singh Yadav said.

“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.

As per police sources, the powder-like substance received in the letter was being examined by the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL).

“Police are also not ruling out the possibility that the letter could have been sent by some mischievous element as similar threats have been received earlier,” a Chandigarh police official said.

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”.

Sran will lead a delegation of BJP leaders to meet DGP Yadav on Tuesday. “We will provide details of several social media accounts that have been targeting me, Brar Sahib, and Sirsa Sahib by labelling us as anti-Sikhs. They have been carrying out this false propaganda for a year and a half and we had brought the matter to the notice of Punjab Police earlier also. These social media accounts have lakhs of followers. Apart from Chandigarh DGP, we will also meet the Punjab DGP,” Sran told The Indian Express.