Escaped Khalistan Liberation Force chief Mintoo arrested in Delhi

New Delhi: The police recaptured top Sikh militant Harminder Singh Mintoo from a railway station in Delhi on Monday, a day after 10 gunmen stormed a high-security prison in Punjab and freed him and five others.

The Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) chief was arrested in a joint operation by the Punjab and Delhi police from Nizamuddin railway station while he was trying to flee to Mumbai.

He tried to whip out a sophisticated semi-automatic pistol, but the police overpowered him, sources said. The separatist militant was sent to seven days of judicial custody after being produced before a Delhi court.

Mintoo had trimmed his hair and beard after the escape. From Mumbai, he wanted to move to Goa where some of his family members live, and then fly to either Malaysia or Germany, sources said.

He has about a dozen cases pending against him. Searches are on to nab his aide Kashmira Singh, said to be hiding in Delhi, who also escaped from Nabha jail in Punjab’s Patiala district.

During searches at bus terminals and railway stations, a police team noticed a Sikh man with his beard trimmed haphazardly. He looked extra conscious, which raised suspicion. He later told the police that the jailbreak was planned and executed by his co-inmates, members of a criminal gang.

Mintoo had been deported from Thailand and arrested in Delhi in 2014 on a string of terror charges. Punjab battled Pakistan-backed Sikh militancy for a separate homeland for more than two decades till early 1990s.

The intelligence wing of the Punjab police had cautioned the state and all district police units about a fortnight ago that Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) could try to carry out terror strikes ahead of next year’s Assembly elections.

The police said there could be an insider’s role in the escape, which had been in the works for three months. The police is trying to ascertain if the gunmen who raided the jail had been hired by the ISI.

The Uttar Pradesh police had arrested on Sunday the jailbreak mastermind, Parminder Singh, from Kairana in the state’s Shamli district. The police also recovered arms and ammunition from him.

He has claimed that eight persons were involved in the jailbreak and the five fugitives were in Karnal and Panipat in search of a hideout, the police said.

The SAD-BJP government has faced criticism for the jailbreak from the Congress and the AAP in Punjab where assembly elections will be held early next year.

Punjab Congress chief Amarinder said on Monday that the state government was involved in the incident. “The case should be handed over to the CBI. It is a clear case of connivance,” he said.

Last month eight Islamists awaiting trial escaped a prison in Madhya Pradesh before being gunned down hours later.