NIA summons farm union chief for questioning, he says bid to derail protest

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has summoned Baldev Singh Sirsa, the president of Lok Bhalai Insaf Welfare Society (LBIWS) which is likely one of the unions taking part in talks with the Government over the brand new farm legal guidelines, in reference to a case registered towards a frontrunner of the outlawed outfit, Sikhs for Justice (SFJ).
Sirsa has been requested to seem on the NIA headquarters in New Delhi on January 17 for questioning within the case towards SFJ’s Gurpatwant Singh Pannu for an alleged conspiracy to create an “atmosphere of fear and lawlessness and to cause disaffection in people and to incite them towards rising in rebellion against the Government of India”.
On Friday, LBIWS was represented by Puran Singh within the ninth spherical of talks with the Government. Speaking to The Indian Express, Sirsa accused the Centre of making an attempt to derail the farmers’ protest. “First, the Government tried to derail the farmer agitation through the Supreme Court, now it is using the NIA,” he mentioned.
On Tuesday, Attorney General Okay Okay Venugopal had informed the Supreme Court that the Government has “been informed there is a Khalistani infiltration” within the ongoing farmers’ protests on Delhi’s outskirts.
The Indian Express has learnt that Sirsa is amongst a number of individuals, together with activists, who’ve been issued summons “for the purpose of answering certain questions” referring to the case towards Pannu below numerous sections of the IPC and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
“Many people who are associated with the farmers’ agitation have been sent these summons. It is to terrorise those working for farmers. But we are not going to be affected by this. We will not bend. The NIA is working day and night to scuttle the kisan parade on January 26. The Government is bent on defaming the protest,” mentioned Sirsa.

The NIA’s FIR within the case accuses “Sikhs For Justice, an ‘Unlawful Association’ under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, and other Khalistani terrorist outfits” of getting into right into a conspiracy.
The FIR claims that “huge funds are being collected abroad for on-ground campaigns and propaganda against the Government of India including staging demonstrations outside Indian missions in countries like the USA, UK, Canada, Germany and so forth”.
It claims that the “funds so collected are being sent through Non-Governmental Organisations to pro-Khalistani elements based in India, to undertake terrorist acts and to strike terror in the people of India.”
According to the FIR, the “SFJ leadership has planned large scale disruptive activities intended to damage government and private property and also disrupt supplies and services essential to the life of the community of India”.
It claims that “SFJ and other pro-Khalistani elements involved in this conspiracy, through their incessant social media campaign and otherwise, are radicalizing and recruiting impressionable youth to agitate and undertake terrorist acts for the creation of a separate nation of Khalistan…”