Labour councillor ‘backs terror group’
Election hopeful shared tributes to militants who killed 329 air passengers
A LABOUR councillor is being investigated by the party after appearing to show support for a banned terror group.
Parbinder Kaur, who posed with Sir Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner at a campaign launch in the West Midlands in March, shared tributes to militants fighting to create a Sikh state – Khalistan – in India’s Punjab state.
The Babbar Khalsa group, proscribed by the Home Office in 2001, was responsible for killing 329 passengers in a bomb which downed an Air India flight in 1985.
But councillor Kaur, who is running in tomorrow’s local elections to retain her seat in the Smethwick ward on Sandwell Council, is believed to have outraged party staff and local activists due to her views on the group.
In 2022, she shared an image of Dilawar Singh Babbar, a Punjab Police officer who became a suicide bomber to assassinate the Indian state’s chief minister. An accompanying caption – ‘Shaheedi Diwas’ – refers to ‘Martyrs’ Day’, when Indian freedom fighters from the days of the British Empire are remembered.
A year earlier, she posted an image of Sukhdev Singh Sukha and Harjinder Singh Jinda. The pair were responsible for gunning down Indian MPs Lalit Maken and Arjan Dass in 1985.
Alongside a picture of the pair – who hanged after being arrested – she posted: ‘Bhai Sukha and Bhai Jinda were kept hanging for 30 minutes. For the execution, 4 Deputy Police Commissioners, 10 assistant Police Commissioners, 14 inspectors, 145 sub-inspectors and 1275 officers had been assigned. Long live Khalistan.’
Separately, the councillor shared on a WhatsApp group of councillors and activists in the West Midlands praising former Babbar Khalsa leader Sukhdev Singh Babbar. The lengthy eulogy hailed his ‘legendary impact’ on the ‘struggle’.
Babbar founded the group in 1978 with the objective of forming an independent state for Sikhs in Punjab. Clashes with Nirankari followers – a separate sect of Sikhism – that year led to hundreds of injuries. He later claimed credit for the killing of 35 Nirankaris.
Ms Kaur’s actions are understood to have been raised with local party officials in the past, but no action was taken.
One local source said: ‘If Labour truly want to be the party of government, its first responsibility is as Protector of the Realm.
‘Thus, it must do more to tackle Pro-Khalistani Extremism (PKE) and other forms of extremism.
‘From even before the Bloom Report last year, activists and government officials have raised issues of PKE within the party.’
Last year a review by independent faith engagement adviser Colin Bloom warned of a ‘ small, extremely vocal and aggressive minority of British Sikhs who can be described as pro-Khalistan extremists, promoting an ethnonationalist agenda’ within Britain.
The Home Office describes Babbar Khalsa as a ‘Sikh movement that aims to establish an independent Khalistan within the Punjab region of India’.
Labour said they would not comment on ongoing investigations.
Ms Kaur did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
‘Issues raised within party’