Banned Sikh Group Pops Up in Canadian Business Directory

June 26, 2006

Source: The Indian Express

http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=189898

On June 26, 2006 The Indian Express reported, "The Sikh diaspora’s support for separatists is once in focus with reports of the banned terrorist group - International Sikh Youth Federation - finding a mention in business directories of Canada. The report by well-known journalist Kim Bolan, who has been covering Sikh politics since 1984 and who also received death threats following her investigations into the Kanishka last, has surprised the police and fuelled a debate among the community. The ISYF, proscribed in India under the Prevention of Terrorism Act on March 22, 2002, was founded in the United Kingdom (UK) in 1984 after Operation Bluestar, where it was subsequently banned. It was also banned by the Canadian Government as well and the US State Department’s annual ‘Patterns of Global Terrorism’, in 1999, lists the ISYF as an active terrorist organization that aspires to carve out of Indian territory an independent Sikh state called Khalistan... Kim Bolan, who works for Canadian newspaper Vancouver Sun, quoted Cpl. Tom Seaman, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) media liaison officer for B.C., as saying that the information about the ISYF listing would be forwarded to the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET)."