Deep Sidhu, involved in ruckus at Red Fort on R-day, infiltrated farmers’ movement with ulterior motives

Deep Sidhu, who defied the farmers’ leadership, broke away from them and led a band of youth to hoist the ‘Nishan Saheb’ at Red Fort – though not by desecrating or removing the national tricolour in any way – is a plant with evident BJP connections.

He had apparently infiltrated into the ranks of the farmers stationed outside Delhi’s borders for 65 days and agitating in Punjab for more than three months prior to that to seek the repeal of the three farm laws detrimental to their economic well being and seeking a legal guarantee for the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for their produce.

Ever since the farm agitation started, a recorded voice message comes on the phone from some foreign number with the recorded person calling himself Gurpatwant Singh and claiming this to be a call from the organisation describing itself as Sikhs for Justice (SFJ). Government sources now disclose that Sidhu and his brother Mandeep Singh had been summoned by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for their suspected association with the SFJ which the investigating agencies claim has some foreign connection and buttresses their point that ‘Khalistanis’ had infiltrated into the farmers’ movement.

Several government ministers and leaders have alleged from time to time that ‘Khalistanis’ had infiltrated into this movement. The Attorney General of India K K Venugopal stated before the Supreme Court on January 12 that ‘Khalistan’ supporters had entered the farmers’ protest and the NIA had pinned it on Deep Sidhu. But who is this Deep Sidhu?

Deep Sidhu is a small time Punjabi film actor whose other associate is Lakhbeer Singh Sidhana alias Lakha, who was arrested earlier under the Gangsters’ Act by Punjab police and was in jail for quite some time before he claimed to have reformed and then contested the 2012 assembly elections as a candidate of the People’s Party of Punjab. He calls himself a social worker/activist. Both of them have been at Singhu border of Delhi for quite some time and claim to lead what they call the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee (KMSC).

It is this KMSC, once a pronounced Left body, which has been captured by Sidhu and company.

Sidhu came into prominence not as an actor or an artiste but as the side kick of Gurdaspur MP Sunny Deol, a well know film star and the son of veteran filmstar Dharmendra and step son of Mathura MP and filmstar Hema Malini.

With the death of yesteryear film star and MP from Gurdaspur Vinod Khanna, the BJP was at a loss to find a suitable candidate for the seat. They reportedly approached Dharmendra through Hema Malini, but Dharmendra, who once had a taste of becoming a BJP MP at her instance, is said to have declined. That is when they thought of Sunny Deol who in a 2001 movie “Gadar: Ek Prem Katha” had played a daring Sikh truck driver.

This character first saves a Muslim girl during the partition of the country from marauders and rapists, falls in love with her, marries her and when she goes to Pakistan to meet her parents who refuse to send her back, he goes all the way to Pakistan. He then single-handedly rescues her.

The movie was majorly promoted at the time since it was a BJP-led government at the Centre and in Punjab, the BJP was part of the ruling alliance. Sources indicate that Sunny, who never showed any signs of an interest in politics, was forced to accept the offer because there were some income tax issues involved.

Once he filed his nominations, he was at sea in the world of politics and that is when Sidhu was attached to him, ostensibly by the local BJP leadership. There is a photograph of Sunny Deol and Sidhu standing together on either side of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is in circulation on the social media since the trouble created by Sidhu and his band came to light on Republic Day afternoon.

So far there is no official denial of his past association with the BJP, except that Sunny Deol has stated that he had broken off with Sidhu long ago. But even he has not denied being photographed along with the Prime Minister and Sidhu.

Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) members claim that Sidhu and his band were all along working at cross purposes from them and did not follow the commonly agreed decisions of the SKM. According to them, Sidhu and his band hijacked the stage at Singhu border and announced “Our Route, Ring Road”, asking the farmers to follow them and thus deliberately creating confusion and chaos in the ranks of peaceful farmers.

He said: “Thousands of youth want to take the Ring Road. The Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee has already decided to take the Ring Road. They are protesting ahead of us, so our tractors will be behind them. So, if anyone wants to go on Ring Road, they can follow the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee.”

Thus, the police, which had been monitoring the movement closely, were evidently in the know of the fact that Sidhu and company would take to Ring Road and head towards Red Fort. How come they reacted so late and targeted innocent peaceful farmers who were in no way involved in that activity?

The photograph of ‘Nishan Saheb’ being hoisted at Red Fort was also loaded on social media, according to sources, by Sidhu himself.

In a video released on social media soon after the Red Fort incident, Sidhu, speaking in Hindi, said it was the outcome of the agitation that has been going on for several months and could not be blamed on one person.

It is evident now that Sidhu infiltrated into the peaceful kisan agitation with the objective of disrupting it and to prove the government right that this movement was being sponsored by ‘Khalistanis’, which is of course not from truth at all.

But then the mainstream TV channels immediately ran to announce that the national flag had been desecrated and assorted BJP leaders went to town calling the farmers as ‘Khalistanis’ with the refrain, “I said so.” And nobody cared to underline that the Punjab farmers were not the only ones who broke ranks.

The UP farmers who came from Baghpat side to Loni border also took the Delhi Police by surprise. These were not Sikhs. Similarly, the farmers at Ghazipur UP border, largely followers of Rakesh Tikait, a majority of whom were not Sikhs, also broke ranks.

But taking a cue from our media stories, the Pakistani TV channels seem to have commented with relish that ‘Khalistanis’ pulled down the Indian flag at Red Fort and hoisted the Khalistani flag, which is entirely untrue.