‘Militants were first to stop SYL construction’

CHANDIGARH: Countering Amarinder’s statement, the Dal Khalsa said the former CM was exaggerating the SYL Canal issue by raising the bogey of “terror” revival threat.

“The first practical action to effectively stop the construction of the SYL Canal was taken up by Babbar Khalsa militants in the 1990’s,” Harpal Singh Cheema, Dal Khalsa head said in a press statement on Tuesday.

“Had it been left to traditional mainstream politicians, the SYL would have been the reality long back,” he said, adding that the digging of canal is next to impossible. He said it’s not the SYL issue that has the potential to “trigger the revival of armed rebellion” but the continued injustice being meted out to Punjab by all the organs of the state.