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Saturday, May 01, 2004

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International - India & World

PW, MCC on terror list

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, APRIL 30. As a part of the ongoing efforts, the United States Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has designated 10 more groups as terrorist organisations for immigration purposes by placing them on the Terrorist Exclusion List.

Two of the groups included are Sikh organisations — the Babbar Khalsa International and the International Sikh Youth Federation. The designations are effective April 29, 2004 and have been made in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, the State Department has said in a press statement. The formal designation will mean that the Federal Government excludes members and those providing material support to such entities from the U.S.

In the `Patterns of Terrorism Report of 2003,' the State Department has also placed the People's War (PW) and the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) in the category of `Other Terrorist Groups.' The report, in the section on `Background Information,' said that the PW claims to belong to a Confederation of Maoist Parties of South Asia "but has not otherwise demonstrated international links." The PW "continues a low intensity insurgency," it said.

The MCC, the report said, runs a "virtual parallel government" in remote areas and operated in the Orissa, Jharkand, Bihar and parts of West Bengal and had a presence on the Bihar-Nepal border.

The State Department has retained on its various lists terror outfits that are active in Jammu and Kashmir, the prominent ones being the Jaish-e-Mohammad, the Lakshar-e-Taiba and the Harkat-ul- Mujahideen, all based in Pakistan.

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