Escaped Khalistani terrorist Harminder Singh Mintoo' arrested near Delhi
New Delhi: Khalistan Liberation Force chief Harminder Singh ‘Mintoo’, who along with five others escaped from the high security jail in Nabha on Sunday, was arrested near Delhi railway station on Monday.
"Mintoo has been arrested from Delhi railway station by Delhi police," said a senior official of Punjab police in Chandigarh.
He said Delhi police nabbed the dreaded terrorist on the basis of inputs passed on by Punjab police. "We passed on the information about Mintoo following which Delhi police arrested him," official said.
He said a team of Punjab police will go to Delhi to bring him back.
It is the second arrest in the case. UP police last evening arrested the alleged "mastermind" of the daring daylight jailbreak, Parminder Singh.
He was arrested from Kairana in Uttar Pradesh's Shamli district when the getaway vehicle--a Toyota Fortuner—was stopped at a police picket.
Mintoo yesterday escaped along with five other prisoners in a sensational jailbreak after armed men in police uniform tricked the sentries into opening the gates and bolted out with the inmates while firing a hail of bullets. Officials said efforts are on to nab the other prisoners who managed to flee.
The Punjab Government has suspended the Director General (Jails) and dismissed the Nabha Jail superintendent and deputy jail superintendent and set up a special task force to look into the Nabha jailbreak incident.
Mintoo was arrested by Punjab Police after he was deported from Thailand in November 2014.
The KLF chief was brought to India along with his key aide Gurpeet Singh ‘Gopi’ after Punjab Police, in coordination with central agencies, traced them in Thailand, a senior police official said.
Mintoo was wanted in ten terror offences while Gopi was tasked to target Hindu outfit leaders in 2013, which were foiled by Punjab Police, in a bid to disturb the peace in the state.
The then Punjab DGP Sumedh Singh Saini had then claimed that Pakistan’s spy agency ISI was “making concerted efforts” to use terror outfits like KLF and Babbar Khalsa to revive terrorism in Punjab, with focus on carrying out killings of prominent leaders belonging to a particular community.
To strengthen KLF, he had developed independent contacts with the foreign-based supporters and fund raisers of terrorism, the official said.
When he was in Pakistan, Mintoo worked with Babbar Khalsa International. But, but being ambitious and a good organiser, he developed independent contacts with Pakistan’s ISI and Europe and North America-based terrorist sympathisers and fund raisers and had planned to raise his own outfit, police had then said.
During his stay in Pakistan, he had visited Europe in 2010 to establish contacts and in June 2013, he left Pakistan for an extensive tour of Europe lasting 11 months, police had then said.
