Goldy Brar’s FBI listing puts India’s UAPA terror list in focus
A day after Canada-based Satinderjeet Singh, better known as Goldy Brar, was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives roster, India’s Fourth Schedule of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, which lists designated terrorists, is back in focus. It currently lists 80 names. Brar was added to the list by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs in January 2024. In New Delhi’s records, he is serial number 56.
Official records identify him as the son of Shamsher Singh and Preetpal Kaur, originally of Sri Muktsar Sahib, Punjab, and last recorded as living in Brampton, Canada. The gazette notification said he was associated with Babbar Khalsa International, had been involved in multiple killings, and used drones to move arms and explosives across the Indian border.
Interpol issued a Red Notice in 2022. The National Investigation Agency has listed a reward of Rs 10 lakh and chargesheeted him in cases that include the May 2022 murder of singer Sidhu Moosewala and later blast and extortion probes.
A US federal warrant issued in Los Angeles on 1 July accuses him of racketeering conspiracy, extortion and narcotics conspiracy as the alleged North American leader of the Lawrence Bishnoi organised crime group. The FBI says the network carried out targeted killings, kidnappings, shootings and drug trafficking in California, elsewhere in the United States and in Canada.
Masood Azhar occupies the first place in the Fourth Schedule of the Unlawful Activities.
The 58-year-old was released from Tihar Jail in December 1999 in exchange for hostages of the hijacked Indian Airlines flight IC-814. Within a year, he built Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). India holds Azhar responsible for the December 2001 attack on Parliament, the 2016 Pathankot airbase attack and the February 2019 Pulwama bombing that killed 40 CRPF personnel. The United Nations listed him as a global terrorist in May 2019.
Hafiz Muhammad Saeed (76) is number two. The Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) founder is accused of orchestrating the November 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people. He has been on the UN sanctions list since December 2008. Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, LeT’s long-time operational commander, occupies the third slot and faces the same UN listing.
Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar (71) is number four. The former Mumbai mafia, long reported to be in Pakistan, is wanted for the 1993 serial bombings that killed more than 250 people. The UN placed him on its Al-Qaida sanctions list in November 2003, citing support for Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Indian records also accuse him of arms smuggling, drug trafficking, counterfeiting currency and terror financing.
Khalistani militants based abroad also figure prominently in the list. Wadhawa Singh Babbar, chief of the banned Babbar Khalsa International, ranks fifth. Lakhbir Singh Rode of the International Sikh Youth Federation ranks sixth. Ranjeet Singh alias Neeta, chief of the Khalistan Zindabad Force, ranks seventh. Other early names include Germany-based KZF operative Bhupinder Singh Bhinda and the founder of Sikhs for Justice, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.
