In a well-coordinated operation, the Special Cell of the Delhi Police on Monday arrested Khalistan liberation Force (KlF) chief Harminder Singh Mintoo, who had escaped in a daring shootout from the highly-secured Nabha Jail in Punjab on Sunday morning.
Mintoo — planning to flee abroad to Malaysia or Germany — was intercepted by a Special Cell team at Nizamuddin Railway Station in the wee hours of Monday, within 24 hours after the jailbreak in which armed men helped him and five other criminals escape.
Other fugitives are yet to be caught. Forty-eight-year-old Mintoo’s effort to hide his identity by trimming his beard —against his religious belief — and evade the arrest failed to outsmart the alert Delhi Police.
Sources said after receiving information about the escape of six men from the jail, the Delhi Police was put on high alert and the Special Cell was tasked to collect information. While on duty, the police team had managed to intercept conversation of Mintoo with one of his relatives and his precise location was established. Following which he was soon overpowered by the police team while he was coming out after booking a train ticket at the railway station, said sources.
“Mintoo had bought a (train) ticket for Panvel, and from there he had plans to go to Mumbai and then to Goa. He had good contacts in Goa as he had stayed there for 18 years from 1989 to 2007,” said Special Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Arvind Deep.
Mintoo, accused in 10 terror cases, was later produced in a city court and was remanded to seven-day police custody. The prosecution demanded his remand and the court after hearing the argument granted seven-day custody to the Delhi Police.
Police recovered a semi automatic pistol and live cartridges from his possession and accordingly, Special Cell registered a case under Sections 353 and 186 of the IPC and Sections 25 and 27 of the Arms Act and Section 20 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
A police official privy to the communication shared by the Punjab Police told The Pioneer that Delhi Police Commissioner Alok Kumar Verma had messaged alerting the police officials across all units, local police and Special Cell to keep vigil on the movement of the Nabah jail escapees.
Pictures of Harminder and Kashmeer were circulated through whatsapp to all the districts and an alert was also issued to all the SHOs about his presence in Delhi. Police personnel were asked to be on lookout for any suspicious movement.
Earlier, a major breakthrough was achieved after one Palwinder Singh, the brains behind the jailbreak, was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Police at Shamli on Sunday evening. Shamli Police passed on the information, disclosed by Palwinder during his interrogation, to its counterparts in Delhi Police that he had dropped Mintoo and Kashmeer Singh, one of the inmates at Kaithal in Haryana in an SUV.
Kashmeer Singh and Mintoo allegedly parted ways in Kaithal, wherein at Kaithal, Mintoo hid himself for a couple of hours. During this time, Mintoo reportedly trimmed his beard and mustache in a bid to avoid getting identified and caught. And he went to another destination.
During sustained interrogation, Mintoo claimed that from Kaithal, he took a jeep and reached Kurukshetra. From Kurukshetra, he then took a bus to Panipat and from Panipat he reached Delhi.
Throughout this time, police officials in Delhi were constantly receiving and relaying information with the Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh counterparts about all the jail inmates and their possible movements. Continuing their efforts in tracing other fugitives, the Delhi Police fanned out in all the bus stops, railway stations etc.
One of the Special Cell sleuths, deployed at the Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station, spotted a Sikh with improperly-trimmed beard and with a patka on his head. He was looking extra conscious which raised suspicion, sources said. When Mintoo come out of the building, he was arrested by a team led by Inspector Shiv Kumar, they added.
Police said that Rs 19,000 cash was also recovered from Mintoo. The Special CP said that Sekhon’s brother Mani had given the cash to Mintoo.
During interrogation, Harminder said the jailbreak was under planning for the last six months and its masterminds and executors were Gurpreet Singh Sekhon and Harjinder Singh who are members of a criminal gang. They were waiting for an opportune time to execute it, said Deep
They had planned that on the day of the incident, all the six inmates would go near the exit gate as a bhandara was reportedly organised at a Gurudwara inside the jail.
The official further said that Mintoo, Kashmeer Singh, Gurpreet Singh Sekhon and Amandeep Singh boarded a Toyota Fortuner. Some 24 kilometres before Kurukshetra, Mintoo and Kashmeer Singh got down from the vehicle. They reportedly hid in the sugarcane fields and Kashmeer Singh later went to a nearby village to buy scissors and they used it in trimming their beards.
Mintoo was arrested in November 2014 at the New Delhi airport after being deported from Thailand. The KlF chief was wanted in a dozen cases of terrorism that included the attack on Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in 2008 and recovery of explosives at Halwara air force station in 2010.
A police official said that the Khalistan liberation Force was formed in the aftermath of Operation Bluestar in 1984. It remained one of the most dreaded outfits fighting for a separate Khalistan till 1993. KlF lost its teeth and influence after its top militants were neutralised by the Punjab Police led by the then Director General of Police KPS Gill.