One of the brainchild of infamous Nabha jailbreak incident and the chief of a militant outfit, Khalistani liberation Force (KlF), Harminder Singh Mintoo died of cardiac arrest in Patiala Central Jail on Wednesday.
“Harminder Singh Mintoo suffered a heart attack in Patiala central jail. He was taken to the government hospital in Patiala where he was declared brought dead by the doctors,” said Punjab Police Inspector General AS Rai.
Fifty-one years old Mintoo was facing several criminal cases including 10 terror-related.
He was arrested from New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International airport in November 2014 after he returned from Thailand, and later, managed to escape from Nabha high security jail along with five other inmates on November 28, 2016. However, he was nabbed from Nizamuddin Railway Station in Delhi a day later.
A group of armed men in police uniform had stormed the maximum security jail at Nabha in Patiala district and managed to free six prisoners — Mintoo, Kashmir Singh, and gangsters Amandeep Dhothian, Vicky Gounder, Gurpreet Sekhon and Neeta Deol. Mintoo was trying to revive and strengthen the KlF with foreign-based supporters. He visited Pakistan and later travelled to Italy, Belgium, Germany, France and other European countries for 11 months (June 2013 to May 2014) before coming to Southeast Asia.
Punjab Police came to know about the conspiracy to eliminate Hindu leaders after sleeper cells were busted by the police in 2013-14.
Born in Dalli village of Jalandhar district in April 1967, Mintoo was said to have close contact with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officers. He was also using a fake Malaysian passport and documents to travel.