KLF chief Mintoo dies of cardiac arrest in Patiala central jail
PATIALA: Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) chief Harminder Singh Mintoo, 51, died of cardiac arrest in Patiala’s Central Jail on Wednesday afternoon.
Mintoo, of Dalli village in Jalandhar district, had escaped from Nabha’s high-security jail with five other gangsters on November 27, 2016, before being rearrested on November 29 the same year. On Wednesday, doctors declared him brought dead at the Government Rajindra Hospital about 4.20pm.
Mintoo was said to be a close associate of former terrorists Aroor Singh and Sukhwinder Singh Babbar, who founded the KLF in 1986 and ran its operations till 1995.
Patiala jail superintendent Rajan Kapur said, “Mintoo had been kept in a special isolated cell. He collapsed, was given first-aid and sent to the Rajindra hospital for treatment. He died on the way to hospital in the ambulance.”
Kapur added, “He was a heart patient and was being treated at the PGI, Chandigarh, for several months.”
HAD BEEN NAMED IN TARGETED KILLINGS FIR
Mintoo had been named in the First-information Report (FIR) that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had registered in a series of targeted killings over the past year. He was to appear in a Jalandhar court in an Arms Act case through videoconferencing about 3pm.
The hearing was deferred and he returned to his cell.
ADGP (prisons) IPS Sahota said, “In such cases, a judicial probe is carried out. The prisons department will write to the authorities concerned.” IGP AS Rai said, “District police received information from jail authorities on Mintoo’s death.”
BOARD OF DOCTORS TO CONDUCT AUTOPSY
A board of doctors has been constituted to perform Mintoo’s post-mortem on Friday. His counsel Brijinder Singh Sodhi alleged foul play and sought a probe into the death.
He added, “Mintoo had never told me about his illness. How can jail authorities and the district police conclude that the death was due to cardiac arrest, when his autopsy has not been done ?.”
In January, Minto through another Ludhiana-based counsel Jaspal Singh Manjhpur had accused the Patiala jail authorities of mental torture and sat on a hunger strike.
Mintoo fled from India to Thailand after Jagraon police booked him in a case of recovery of RDX in 2008; he was acquitted in this case by a Ludhiana court.
In Thailand, he came in contact with Pakistani spy agency, ISI, and worked to revive KLF. He travelled to Germany, France, Italy and Belgium, before being arrested on his return from Thailand in November 2014.
Since then, he was assumed to be the self-styled chief of the terrorist outfit.
He was also accused of planting explosives outside the LPG bottling plant in Nabha in January 2010, but an additional district and sessions court had acquitted him.
He was also acquitted in a case, where he was accused of helping two men in buying weapons and detonators.