Six Babbar Khalsa militants held for Burail Jail conspiracy

The arrested terrorists have been identified as Manmohan Singh whose father Charanjit Singh is lodged in Burail Jail in connection with Beant Singh Assassination case, Paramdeep Singh, Balwinder Singh, Rajinder Singh Neeta (all from Ropar district), Jaswant Singh (belonging to Fatehgarh Sahib district) and Kanwaljit Singh (from Gurdaspur).

Dogra stated that they had hatched a conspiracy at the instance of militants in Pakistan, United States and Canada, for a daring jail-break to secure the release of top Babbar Khalsa terrorists Jagtar Singh Hawara and Jagtar Singh Dekwala and revive terrorism by targetting some politicians.

He, however, declined to name the targetted leaders. Adopting a high-tech technique, they managed to sneak in two mobile phones into the jail for day-to-day co-ordination and exchange of notes between Wadhawa Singh and other militants in Canada and Usa, and Hawara. The second phone was smuggled in after the first one failed to receive international calls, Dogra revealed.

Senior Superintendent of Police, Ropar, Ranbir Singh Khatra, who was also present, revealed that the mobile phone was in the name of Lakhwinder Singh, a City businessman, and Hawara used it in the name of Sanjiv.

The DGP further revealed that the interrogation of those arrested on June 16 and 18 revealed that the phone was bought with money provided by a local advocate, Daljit Singh Rajput, who had got the same from abroad through hawala transactions.

Though the Ropar police have registered nine FIRs regarding the arrests and seizures, prominent persons who figured in these, Dogra said, included Amrinder Singh, who is former hijacker and now member of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, Daljit Singh Rajput, advocate, Jaspal Singh Dhillon, chairman of the Human Rights Democratic Front, Baljit Kaur Khalsa (arrested earlier by the UT police) and Kuljit Kaur, wife of militant Kanwar Singh Dhami.

Dogra identified the leader of the gang as Didar Singh Dari of Batala settled in New York, who had helped smuggle the consignments through Jammu border which were buried in dumps in Ropar district on the outskirts of the Union Territory. The seizures included two .30 pistols, four ABCD timers, two day and night switches, four imported batteries, a bottle of imported anaesthesia, one Tata Sumo, one packet each of time pencils, cordex wire and fuse wire and Rs 50,000 in cash.

According to DGP, Hawara had managed to smuggle at least two small consignments of explosives inside the jail through Balwinder Singh Dekwala in the form of barfi.