Johar Town, Lahore

Johar Town, spelt Jauhar Town in The Tribune, is a residential area of Lahore, Pakistan. It figures in this record because of one event: the killing there on 6 May 2023 of Paramjit Singh Panjwar, chief of the Khalistan Commando Force (KCF) Panjwar group, who lived in the area.

Key moments

• 6 May 2023: Panjwar was shot in the head in a park in the Sun Flower Housing Society, Johar Town, where he lived, at about 6 am. A Pakistani police officer told The Tribune that two assailants on a motorcycle fired and fled, and that his guard was wounded and later died. The Tribune called the shooters "unidentified gunmen" and said Pakistan's intelligence agencies and Counter-Terrorism Department began an investigation. Its report carried no official Pakistani statement on who did it or why.
• After the killing: his elder brother Sarabjit Singh asked the Indian government to return the body so it could be cremated with Sikh rites.
• About 14 July 2024: Giani Raghbir Singh, then Jathedar of the Akal Takht, asked the SGPC to put portraits of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, Panjwar and Gajinder Singh in the Central Sikh Museum in the Golden Temple complex, calling them "martyrs" of the Sikh community.

What India says. In July 2020 India listed Panjwar under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act as a "terrorist". The Tribune's unnamed official sources say he was involved in killings in Punjab before leaving for Pakistan in 1995 or 1996, and that he held a Pakistani identity card in the name Gulzar Singh. An Indian ministry linked him to the drug trade and fake currency. The Week's security sources said he lived in a safe house that Pakistan's ISI watched closely, and called the killing further proof that the ISI shelters such figures. The Week notes that Islamabad has repeatedly denied this. These are the claims of anonymous officials, not court findings.

What it means to the Panth. Johar Town is where a Kharku chief, whom India had listed under its anti-terror law, was living when he was killed. For the Indian state he was a wanted man. For the Akal Takht's Jathedar of the time he was a martyr. The killing remains unsolved in every source opened here.