Four sent to judicial custody
MOHALI : A designated court of National Investigation Agency (NIA) special judge, Mohali, NS Gill, sent all four suspected operatives of the Khalistan Zindabad Force (KZF) terror module to judicial custody on Wednesday. They are accused of involvement in the case of weapons being dropped by drones from Pakistan in Tarn Taran in late September.
The accused Balwant Singh, alias Baba, alias Nihang, 45, of Tarn Taran’s Mohanpura village; Akashdeep Singh, alias Akash Randhawa, 20, of Amritsar’s Naag Kalan village; Maan Singh, 40, and 22-year-old Subhdeep, alias Shub Sandhu, were produced before the court amid high security.
Punjab Police had seized five AK-47 rifles, 16 magazines, 472 rounds of ammunition, four Chinese-made 30 bore pistols, along with eight magazines and 72 rounds of ammunition.
Nine hand-grenades and five satellite phones with their ancillary equipment were also recovered.
Two mobile phones, two wireless sets and fake currency with face value of ₹10 lakh were also seized. Later, the investigation was handed over to the NIA.
Drones with a Global Positioning System (GPS), and capable of lifting weights of up to 10kg flew in from Pakistan seven-eight times to airdrop the cache of arms, ammunition and fake currency, investigations have found.
The accused have been booked under Sections 489-A (counterfeiting currency notes or bank notes); 489-B (using as genuine counterfeit notes), 489-C (possession of counterfeit notes) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC); 25 of the Arms Act; 3, 4 & 5 of Explosive Substances Act; 15, 17, 18, 18-B & 20 of UA(P)A and 52-A of the Prisons Act, 1984.