Arrest of Dugri tiffin bomb blast accused key to solving Namdhari matriarch’s murder

CHANDIGARH: The arrest of the main accused in the Jalandhar tiffin car bomb blast case, Palvinder Singh alias Dimple, is being seen as a key to solving the highprofile murder of Namdhari sect matriarch Mata Chand Kaur.

Kaur (88), the wife of former sect head late Satguru Jagjit Singh, was shot dead on April 4, 2016, by two unidentified assailants at the sect’s headquarters in Bhaini Sahib near Ludhiana.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) recently arrested Palvinder, a resident of Delhi, in Bangkok, Thailand. He is said to be the former driver of Thakur Dalip Singh, the head of the Sirsa-based rival faction of the Namdharis.

The tiffin blast had taken place in Jalandhar’s Dugri village in December 2015.

He was on run ever since the Punjab Police started investigation in the case. Later, this case was handed over to the CBI. After the Punjab Police failed to get any clue in the case in initial probe, the Chand Kaur murder case was also handed over to the CBI in September 2017 by the previous SAD-BJP government.

“Palvinder knows many things about the sect feud. Though it’s not clear if he had any role in the murder of Chand Kaur, he is surely going to be a key link in the case. It is only for this reason that the CBI has nabbed him and brought him from Thailand,” claimed a senior police official.

He is being questioned by a CBI team at Delhi, claimed the official privy with the case.

In their challan filed in the court, the Jalandhar Rural police had claimed that Palvinder was one of the conspirators who hatched the plan to target the Namdhari sect head, Uday Singh, in Jalandhar on December 25, 2015 with tiffin bombs.

However, these bombs had exploded in the car when they were being brought to Jalandhar. One Ajay Sharma, who was bringing these bombs in the car, had received them from Palvinder. Immediately after the bid to kill Uday Singh got foiled, Palvinder was on the run.

Punjab Police officials feel Palvinder’s interrogation is of huge importance in the killing of a Namdhari follower Avtar Singh Tari who was shot dead at Bhaini Sahib in 2011. Tari was also a close associate of Uday Singh.