Thailand has deported to India ‘Khalistani’ militant Jagtar Singh Tara, convicted for life in the former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh’s assassination case and was on the run for over a decade.
Tara, a Babbar Khalsa International militant, had escaped from the high-security Burail prison in Chandigarh in 2004 and was absconding before being nabbed by Thai authorities on January 5 this year. Interpol had issued a Red Corner Notice on the request of CBI.
CBI sources confirmed the development saying Thai authorities have deported him to India for facing the law here. According to CBI, Tara, 37, was directly involved in the assassination of Beant Singh as he had purchased the car which was used to kill the CM in the Chandigarh secretariat by exploding a human bomb.
The conspiracy of all the accused was unearthed when a car painter Balwinder Singh identified the vehicle used in the blast by the terrorists as he had painted it. Beant Singh was assassinated in a bomb blast at the secretariat complex in Chandigarh on August 31, 1995 by Babbar Khalsa International terrorists. The blast had claimed the lives of 17 others including three commandos. Meanwhile, Punjab Police has got Tara’s custody. Tara would be produced in a court in Patiala where police remand for his questioning would be sought.