Ten armed men, a meticulous plan and just ten minutes — that was all needed for the great escape of dreaded Khalistan militant outfit chief and five other prisoners from high-security Nabha Jail in Patiala on Sunday.
Sending shock waves, not only in Punjab but across the country, chief of Khalistan liberation Front (KlF) Harminder Mintoo, alias Mintoo, escaped along with five other prisoners after the armed men in police uniform stormed the prison, exposing “lapses” and raising doubts of possible collusion of insiders.
Mintoo, who was arrested by the Punjab Police in November 2014 after he was deported from Thailand, was wanted in ten terror cases.
Other escapees include gangster Vicky Gonder, who was suspected to be behind murder of another gangster Sukha Kahlwan, a terrorist Kashmir Singh Galwadi involved in attack on a Punjab Hindu leader in Gurdaspur in 2013, gangster Gurpreet Singh Sekhon who was involved in murder, kidnappings, extortion and highway robberies, gangsters Neeta Deol and Vikramjit who were also involved in various crimes in Punjab and other places.
Interestingly, despite more than 200 rounds of fire exchange between the police and the attackers, everyone escaped unhurt.
Punjab DGP Suresh Arora said that “the unidentified assailants came in police fatigues and were carrying small firearms.” He said that they told police personnel deployed on jail premises that they were bringing a prisoner.
“later, they fired indiscriminately and fled with six criminals, including a terrorist,” he said, adding over 35 rounds were fired and there was no casualty among the jail personnel, who were allegedly caught off guard and did not offer any strong resistance.
“The firing was also done from inside the jail. We will see why the firing was not effective,” the DGP said and added there is a “conspiracy somewhere”.
“Had there been effective firing, it would have been the other way round,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Punjab Government sacked two senior prison officials, Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent, suspended ADGP (Jails) and formed an SIT to probe the jailbreak. It ordered a separate enquiry committee headed by Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Jagpal Singh Sandhu to look into the “security lapses”.
“There are two aspects. One is that the jailbreak will be probed and the second thing is lapses. Who is responsible, if there is any connivanceIJ” the DGP said.
The incident came at a time when the State is gearing up for State Assembly polls, which is less than two months away. The Opposition parties in Punjab have all along been taking on the State Government for its failure to control the deteriorating law and order situation in Punjab.
The Congress has already apprehended use of muscle power during elections by the ruling regime, which is sheltering such gangsters. And with such an astonishing jailbreak incident, the Opposition parties are not going to let it subside soon.
The development also assumes significance as the jailbreak took place two days after the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh asked the security forces to guard against attempts to disturb peace through “vicious” political campaign or by external extremist forces during the election process in Punjab and four other States.
Meanwhile, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal held a high level meeting of Civil and Police Administration including intelligence officials to review the situation.
Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal also rushed to Nabha for an on-the-spot review of the situation there.
“A special task force has been set up to track these criminals. The police are on duty and we will catch them. A team under the Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) has been formed to investigate the incident. Strict action will be taken against whoever is responsible,” said the Deputy Chief Minister-cum-Home Minister Sukhbir Badal.
A high alert has been sounded in the entire State, and also in the neighbouring States. “The State is on high alert after the Punjab jailbreak. We are checking suspicious vehicles and are on strict vigil,” said a policeman on duty.
BJP leader and advisor to Punjab Chief Minister Vineet Joshi said that the incident was related to “cross-border terrorism”.
“This is not a general petty crime issue. This is cross-border terrorism. We already had an input which was in public domain that Pakistani agencies were trying to destabilise Punjab ahead of elections, so this is an effort which I believe has links to cross-border terrorism,” he said.
Police sources said that the CCTV footage of the jail, call records of jail officials and posts on social media sites were being studied to know the involvement of people in the sensational jailbreak.
“We are closely studying the jail’s visitors’ book… Who have visited them in the recent past…more importantly, we would try to find out the fake addresses, if any,” a senior Punjab police jail official told The Pioneer.