CBI charges pro-Khalistan terrorist Saini with forgery
NEW DELHI: A pro-Khalistan terrorist, who had hijacked SrinagarNew Delhi Indian Airlines flight in 1984 and taken it to Lahore, has now been charged by CBI with cheating and forgery in acquiring an Afghan passport under assumed identity to migrate to Canada.
In a recent charge sheet filed here, the agency has accused Parminder Singh Saini alias Harfan Maula for allegedly acquiring fake Afghan passport in the name of Balbir Singh while in Pakistan in 1995, CBI sources said.
The agency has said that Saini used this passport to migrate to Canada where he got himself issued driving and social security licences on the basis of forged travel documents which he had acquired in Pakistan.
Sources said although the agency had taken over case of hijacking, initially registered by Budgam police on July 5, 1984, but could not proceed with it because of conviction for the same crime in Pakistan which had given highest possible punishment to Saini.
He was later released and migrated to Canada using fake identity of Balbir Singh, sources said.
In its charge sheet filed in Patiala House Court, the CBI has cited Letters Rogatory received from Canada where Saini was apprehended in 1995 after his fraud came to light, they said. Saini was deported to India in 2010 after a long legal battle in Canada where he had sought permanent residency.
The hijacking had taken place on July 6, 1984 when the Indian Airlines flight IC 405 from Srinagar to New Delhi carrying 255 passengers and a crew of nine on flight forced to land in Lahore, Pakistan.
The terrorists had sought release of Harmandar Singh Sandho, general secretary of the All-India Sikh Students Federation, and others prominent members besides $25- Million, which should be paid to them in Pakistan, among other demands.
The Pakistan authorities refused to return these eight Sikh terrorists to India and carried out trial in their own court which sentenced them to death for hijacking.
In December 1989, his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.