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KCF chief Panjwar dies in anonymity, his sons seek Pakistan visa from Germany

The murder of Paramjit Singh Panjwar was featured in prominent Pakistan media as a routine killing of a Pak Sikh called Sardar Singh Malik.

Updated on: May 7, 2023, 10:59:38 IST
By , New Delhi
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Twelve years ago, in March 2011, India handed over a list of 50 most wanted fugitives in Pakistan during bilateral Home Secretary-level talks here in the Capital with Khalistan Commando Force (KCF) Chief Paramjit Singh Panjwar’s name prominent among other notorious notables taking hospitality of the Pakistani deep state.

Paramjit Singh Panjwar was designated a terrorist under the UAPA, and has been accused of drug smuggling, dealing with fake Indian currency, and a list of five dastardly crimes.
Paramjit Singh Panjwar was designated a terrorist under the UAPA, and has been accused of drug smuggling, dealing with fake Indian currency, and a list of five dastardly crimes.

Today, the murder of a 63-year-old once dreaded terrorist at 6 am on Saturday was featured in prominent Pakistan media as a routine killing of a Pakistani Sikh called Sardar Singh Malik. Panjwar was pumped with bullets fired from a 30 calibre pistol as he took his morning constitutional at Johar Town in Lahore along with his gunman. There is no mention of the injured gunman in Pakistani media as Khalistan votary Panjwar died in abject anonymity with Islamabad not ready to give visa to his Germany-based sons to travel to Pakistan for his last rites. In the meantime, preparations are being made in his Panjwar village in Tarn Taran in Punjab to conduct religious ceremonies at the behest of Sangrur MP Simranjeet Singh Mann to mark the death of the Khalistan terrorist.

The murder of Panjwar in Lahore demolished Pakistan's lie once again as it has blatantly denied the presence of any of the Indian fugitives in their country including the 1993 Mumbai carnage main accused Dawood Ibrahim and his henchmen. Panjwar was designated a terrorist under the UAPA by the Union Home Ministry on July 1, 2020, and has been accused of drug smuggling, dealing with fake Indian currency, and a list of five dastardly crimes including killing 18 students of Thappar Engineering College, Patiala in cold blood. He was also responsible for trafficking Afghan heroin to the US, UK, Germany, and Canada to raise funds for separatists to target India.

None of this finds any mention in Pakistan's major media and Panjwar in all probability will be buried in an unmarked grave in Lahore by his handlers in Pakistan ISI. It is understood the entire Khalistan operation is handled by an Army Colonel in the ISI Directorate.

While Panjwar has now been confined to the dustbin of Khalistan separatist history, the killing inadvertently would also put of the fear of god into other Indian fugitives hiding in Pakistan even though no group has claimed responsibility for the gunning down of the KCF chief.

  • Shishir Gupta
    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Shishir Gupta

    Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More