Security up in 4 Punjab jails after MHA intel input


The security has been beefed up across jails in Punjab after an intelligence input from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) sent to the Punjab Police has alerted that the Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) operative and wanted gangster-terrorist Harvinder Singh Rinda, believed to be hiding in Pakistan, has “conceived a jailbreak plan in Punjab” to “ensure release of some prominent gangsters and militants”.

According to the letter accessed by The Indian Express, the “likely targets of execution could be Bathinda jail, Ferozepur jail, Amritsar jail or Ludhiana jail”. The development comes few days after Punjab witnessed back-to-back incidents of violence and security breach, allegedly planned and executed by the gangsters operating from abroad with the help of local criminals, including murder of kabaddi player Sandeep Singh Nangal Ambian on March 14, RPG attack on police intelligence.

HQs in Mohali on May 9 and gruesome killing of singer-rapper Sidhu  Moosewala on May 29.

The letter written by the joint director, SIB (MHA) to Punjab Police DGP says that “according to a reliable input, Pakistan-based operative Harvinder Singh alias Rinda has conceived a jail break plan in Punjab in coming days to ensure release of some prominent gangsters and militants”.

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“Besides utilising his Punjab-based cohorts, Rinda is also likely to rope in some jehadi elements in execution of the plan. The likely targets of execution could be Bathinda jail, Ferozepur jail, Amritsar jail or Ludhiana jail,” reads the letter.

Rinda, a wanted terrorist-gangster considered close to BKI chief Wadhawa Singh and ‘being protected’ by the ISI in Pakistan, is a close associate of Lakhvir Singh Landa, a gangster hiding in Canada and the key conspirator of RPG attack on Punjab Police’s intelligence HQs, said Punjab Police.

Rinda, 35, is also suspected of carrying out a terror attack at the Nawanshahr Crime Investigating Agency (CIA) building on November 8 last year. In May this year, in a joint operation of Punjab and Haryana police also arrested four terror suspects from Karnal who were allegedly travelling to Telangana to deliver a…

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