Ken Livingstone appointed Dabinderjit Singh to the TfL board
Posted on 04/22/2008 2:00:30 AM PDT by Stoat
Andrew GilliganKen Livingstone has appointed a former member of a banned terrorist organisation to the board of Transport for London.
Until 2001, Dabinderjit Singh, a civil servant, was a member of the International Sikh Youth Federation, a UK-based group banned under British antiterror laws.
The then Home Office minister, Lord Bassam, said British-based ISYF members were a "threat to national security" and the group had carried out " assassinations, bombings and kidnappings" overseas.
The ISYF plotted a number of unsuccessful attacks in the UK and one of its members was convicted of the 1985 Air India bombing off Ireland, the deadliest single aircraft terror attack in history.
After it was banned the ISYF dissolved, creating a successor body, the Sikh Federation UK, whose executive committee and senior members - including Mr Singh - are largely the same as the ISYF's, and whose objectives are the same. Sikh Federation UK has received extensive support from Mr Livingstone.
The Sikh Federation UK's official 2008 calendar glorifies terrorist "martyrs" - including the assassins of Indira Gandhi and the mastermind of the1985 Air India bombing. Last June, Mr Singh spoke at a Sikh Federation UK rally - sanctioned by Mr Livingstone - in Trafalgar Square at which another speaker praised terrorism and suicide bombing and at which the banners of another banned Sikh terrorist group, Babbar Khalsa, were on open display. Mr
Livingstone has worked closely with the Sikh Federation UK, meeting its leadership - including Mr Singh - as recently as six weeks ago.
According to a 29 February City Hall press release, they presented him with a shield in honour of "the work he has done in support of the Sikh community".
The press release described Mr Singh as a member of the Sikh Federation. He described himself to the Standard as an "adviser" to the federation's executive.
The Mayor also allowed the free use of City Hall and the London Assembly chamber for at least two events organised by the Sikh Federation UK - the "World Sikh Summit," on 17 September last year, and a conference on "making Sikhs visible to decision-makers" on 1 February 2006. Mr Singh spoke at both events.
Mr Singh has had at least one private one-on-one meeting with the Mayor - in September 2006 - and was appointed by him to the TfL board in the same month. He is paid at least £22,000 a year for this appointment.
Mr Singh told the Standard today: "I was a sympathiser of the ISYF but the only time I came into the limelight with the ISYF was in 2000.
"The organisation was put up for proscription about two months later. When an organisation [the ISYF] is proscribed, it's the organisation, not the individuals, that are banned."
He said he was "not disputing" that there were links between the ISYF and the Sikh Federation but said the Sikh Federation was a "reputable organisation".
He described the Home Office claims of "assassinations, bombings and kidnappings" by the ISYF as a "generic phrase" and said the ban was "illogical".
The Sikh Federation UK - not to be confused with the moderate British Sikh Federation - claims to be a peaceful organisation.
However, the clearest indication of its true sympathies is its official 2008 calendar. Headed "Never forget the sacrifices made by Sikhs in the last 30 years for freedom and justice," it is plastered with pictures of Sikh terrorists and " martyrs", including Talwinder Singh, the mastermind of the Air India bombing, and Beant Singh, the assassin of Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi.
Asked whether it was acceptable to honour the assassin of a prime minister, Dabinderjit Singh said: "We are highlighting people who are martyrs ... There is another side to the story [of the assassination]. Indira Gandhi was responsible for killing many thousands."
The three most senior officers of the Sikh Federation UK are the former leaders of the ISYF. The federation's chair, Amrik Singh Gill, was the ISYF's president. Its vice-president, Kuldeep Singh Chaheru, and its general secretary, Narinderjit Singh, were vice-presidents of the ISYF. Amrik Singh Gill and Narinderjit Singh also met Mr Livingstone this February.
Atma Singh, the Mayor's former Asian affairs adviser - himself a Sikh - told the Standard he had warned the Mayor about the Sikh Federation UK.
"In London, the Sikh Federation UK has very little support," he said. "Their power base is limited to half a dozen temples in the Midlands. But City Hall wanted to build them up and give them the same credibility as they did with the [fundamentalist-Muslim Association of Britain." The ISYF was founded to campaign for an independent Sikh state in India, known as Khalistan, and avenge the 1984 Golden Temple massacre of Sikh militants by the Indian government.
The Home Office claims British members channelled money and arms to the Indian branch of the organisation.
The ISYF was involved in the bombing of Air India flight 182 over the Atlantic. Three hundred and twenty nine people, including 114 children, were killed by a bomb planted on the plane en route from Montreal to London.
The bombing was mainly the work of the Babbar Khalsa. However, the only man to be convicted over it, British-Canadian Inderjit Singh Reyat, from Birmingham, was a member of the ISYF.
ISYF members in India were responsible for indiscriminate killings of civilians, including women and children, during the Sikh insurgency in the Punjab from the early Eighties to 1993.
The ISYF also plotted a number of murders in Britain, mainly of visiting Indian politicians. The plots were intercepted by British security forces and foiled.
The ISYF is also suspected of involvement in the still-unsolved murder of a moderate, anti-ISYF Sikh newspaper editor in Southall.
There is no suggestion that Dabinderjit Singh has been personally involved in facilitating or carrying out an act of terrorism, or in ISYF activity since the group was banned.
However, on 3 June last year he spoke at a rally in Trafalgar Square, co-organised by the Sikh Federation UK, at which the crossed-Kalashnikov banner of the Babbar Khalsa group was on display.
At the rally, another speaker, Avtar Sanghera, praised a Babbar Khalsa leader, Jagtar Singh Hawara, who is on death row in India for taking part in a suicide attack on the chief minister of the Punjab.
"We are proud of this brother of ours," Mr Sanghera said. "With God's blessings, more men like Hawara will be born."
Mr Sanghera also said the Babbar Khalsa had "set its cross-hairs" on three Sikh "apostates" who would be "wiped off the face of the Punjab".
Glorifying terrorism and supporting a banned terrorist organisation are criminal offences under the terror laws.
Adrian Hunt, an expert in counterterrorism law at the University of Birmingham, said the footage of the rally - shown on YouTube - gave "sufficient material for the matter to be inquired into very seriously by the authorities".
Dabinderjit Singh told the Standard: "Any community, you have individuals who get up and say things and you think, 'What the hell are you doing'. There was a group of individuals [at the rally] who decided they were going to push the law to its limits. I have no time for those people - they are totally missing the point."
He said that Mr Livingstone "allowed us to use Trafalgar Square". Mr Singh also said that the Mayor had been invited to address the rally but had refused, saying he "rarely spoke on a Sunday".
Asked for his views on the armed struggle, Mr Singh said: "If someone has had their mother and father killed and they decide to take up arms because they feel there is no justice for them, it's very difficult to condemn them, because they're trying to defend themselves."
Dabinderjit Singh is described by Sikh analysts as the "respectable face" of Sikh separatist militancy. He is a senior civil servant with the National Audit Office and has been awarded the OBE.
Reports of the ceremony describe him as an ISYF member and state that he wore the ISYF insignia to the investiture. The ISYF was legal at that point and enjoyed close relations with some British politicians, who protested against the Government ban.
Mr Singh, who still has a place on the TfL board, would have attended board meetings and decided upon new fare rises, financing and budgets, proposed lines extensions, strategic planning and health and safety issues.
Mr Livingstone declined to comment.
"In London, the Sikh Federation UK has very little support," he said. "Their power base is limited to half a dozen temples in the Midlands. But City Hall wanted to build them up and give them the same credibility as they did with the [fundamentalist-Muslim Association of Britain." The ISYF was founded to campaign for an independent Sikh state in India, known as Khalistan, and avenge the 1984 Golden Temple massacre of Sikh militants by the Indian government.
The Home Office claims British members channelled money and arms to the Indian branch of the organisation.
The ISYF was involved in the bombing of Air India flight 182 over the Atlantic. Three hundred and twenty nine people, including 114 children, were killed by a bomb planted on the plane en route from Montreal to London.
The bombing was mainly the work of the Babbar Khalsa. However, the only man to be convicted over it, British-Canadian Inderjit Singh Reyat, from Birmingham, was a member of the ISYF.
ISYF members in India were responsible for indiscriminate killings of civilians, including women and children, during the Sikh insurgency in the Punjab from the early Eighties to 1993.
The ISYF also plotted a number of murders in Britain, mainly of visiting Indian politicians. The plots were intercepted by British security forces and foiled.
The ISYF is also suspected of involvement in the still-unsolved murder of a moderate, anti-ISYF Sikh newspaper editor in Southall.
Please Pray for the people of Great Britain
International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF) - Punjab Terrorist Outfit Profile
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Objectives Working towards the establishment of an independent homeland for the Sikhs is the chief aim of the organization. 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. |
> Ken Livingstone has appointed a former member of a banned terrorist organisation to the board of Transport for London.
That will make it efficient if he ever wants to blow up the Tube.
That will make it efficient if he ever wants to blow up the Tube.
Indeed. From the article:
Mr Singh, who still has a place on the TfL board, would have attended board meetings and decided upon new fare rises, financing and budgets, proposed lines extensions, strategic planning and health and safety issues.
After sufficient time has past, terrorists gain a certain irresistable counter-cultural cachet that makes them absolute heroes to the far Left. This is true of the Weather Underground in the United States as well, which is why the young Barack Obama made a pilgrimage to the house of William Ayers to kiss the ring of the famous terrorist as a political rite of passage.
An excellent and essential observation. It seems, however, that in this case Mr. Livingstone is terribly eager to kiss a ring, the hand of which is still 'figuratively' dripping with blood from very recent 'actions'....the ISYF victims have barely been laid to rest whereas the Weathermen's victims were a few decades ago, not that the families' pain or Mr. Ayers' guilt is diminished by the passage of time in any way. I suppose it's a matter of appearances, but Mr. Livingstone seems entirely unconcerned:
Mr Livingstone declined to comment.
One wonders how long it will be before Leftist pols start appointing Gitmo detainees to cushy, security-sensitive jobs with nice pensions....after all, according to the Left, the Gitmo terrorists are being 'illegally detained' by that Evil George Bush anyhow, so their appointment as infrastructure designers for major Western cities would undoubtedly be met with unrestrained rejoicing by their constituency.
Please forgive my cynicism.
for all you Roger Daltry fans,”Say it ain’t so Joe,please say it ain’t so!”
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