Khalistan ultra, who escaped from jail, held in Delhi

Chief of the banned Khalistan Liberation Front, Harminder Singh Mintoo, who escaped from Punjab’s Nabhi jail, along with five inmates on Sunday, was arrested at Delhi’s Nizammuddin railway station early on Monday morning.

The Special Cell of the Delhi Police nabbed him in the parking lot of the railway station when he tried to flee after being identified. “He had bought a train ticket to Panvel in Mumbai when he was stopped for questioning by the police,” said Special Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Arvind Deep.

Mintoo whipped out a pistol after being questioned by the police but was overpowered, Deep said.

The Delhi Police was alerted by its Punjab and Uttar Pradesh counterparts on Sunday that the fugitive inmates could enter the national capital. “After receiving the inputs, we positioned our personnel at strategic locations in the city. Searches at guesthouses, hotels and border areas were intensified,” said Deep.

After escaping from the jail, Mintoo, Kashmeer Singh, Amandeep Singh and Palwinder Singh, who helped the six flee the jail, headed towards Kaithal in Haryana in a Toyota Fortuner car. At Kaithal, Mintoo and Kashmeer alighted from the vehicle and the other two drove off.

The police said that at Kaithal they both tried to change their appearance by trimming off their beard and moustache.

From Kaithal, Mintoo and Kashmeer took a jeep and reached Kurukshetra in Haryana. From there they travelled by a bus to Panipat and then boarded another bus to reach Delhi ISBT (inter state bus terminus).

At the Kashmere Gate ISBT, the two separated in order to avoid detectionby police.

“Their objective was to reach Nizamuddin Railway Station separately and latermeet in Goa where Mintoo has good logistical support as he has spent 18 years there,”Deep said at a press conference.

While Mintoo reached the railway station and managed to buy a ticket to Panvel, the whereabouts of Kashmeer is still unknown. The police said he was still in Delhi and would be caught soon.

Mintoo was born in Dalli village in Jalandhar district in 1967. His family shifted to Goa in 1989. Mintoo then travelled to Cambodia, Malaysia, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand.

He used Thailand as his base to mobilise funds for banned pro freedom Sikh bodies, sources said.

Before becoming the chief of Khalistan Liberation Front (KLF), Mintoo was a member of Babbar Khalsa International (BKI).

In 2009, he left BKI and revived KLF. He was arrested from Indira Gandhi International Airport in 2014 while travelling on a fake passport.

Mintoo is involved in 12 terror-related cases, including the attack on the Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in 2008,and the recovery of explosives at Halwara Air Force Station near Ludhiana in 2010.