Pro-Khalistan radicals in Pakistan and Germany behind Ludhiana blast: Intel
NEW DELHI: Investigations conducted by security agencies and the Punjab police into the Ludhiana sessions court blast on Thursday reveal a cross-border conspiracy with the involvement of a Germany based pro-Khalistan terrorist and a Pakistanbased radical with the intention of destabilising the poll-bound state, security officials said.
According to top security officials in the know of the developments, Jaswinder Singh Multani, a Germany-based pro-Khalistan terrorist, has played a crucial role in the sessions court blast on December 23. A native of village Mansoorpur in Hoshiarpur district of Punjab, Multani has been supplying weapons and explosives in India by using his network of Pakistan-based smugglers to carry out terror strikes on the Indian mainland. Intelligence inputs indicate that the Pakistani ISI specifically tasked Multani along with Pakistan based ‘Category A’ wanted gangster-cum-Khalistani radical, Harvinder Singh aka Rinda Sandhu, to carry out terror attacks to destabilise Punjab in the run-up to the assembly elections.
According to available inputs, Multani has been closely associated with the banned outfit Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) for promoting separatist activities and is said to be in constant touch with
US-based SFJ president Avtar Singh Pannu and Harmeet Singh aka Harpreet aka Rana, who are pursuing separatist agenda of Khalistan through Sikh Referendum 2020. Multani is understood to be assisting the SFJ’s separatist campaign in Germany and recently come to notice of the law enforcement agencies for arranging consignments of weapons, explosives, hand grenades and ammunition from Pakistan, with the help of his Pakistan-based operatives-cumarms smugglers.
Multani is said to be planning to carry out terrorist activities in Punjab and other parts of India using explosives smuggled from across the border. It is learnt that Multani even targeted a key farmer leader Balbir Singh Rajewal, president of BKU-Rajewal, for the latter’s speech condemning the Khalistani forces’ attempt to infiltrate and derail the protest over farm laws. The Punjab police busted the involved terror module and recovered 8 country-made pistols along with 8 magazines and 7 cartridges from the module members. In August 2021, the Punjab police arrested Saroop Singh of Tarn Taran district, who was radicalised by Multani and had sent two high explosive hand grenades to him for creating mayhem in the district town. The involvement of Pakistan-based Harvinder Sandhu aka Rinda was revealed during the June 2021 interrogation of a so-called Khalistan supporter Jagjit Singh, who was caught with 48 pistols, 99 magazines and 200 cartridges in the Khemkaran-Ajnala sector by Punjab Police. A hardcore criminal, Rinda, who originally hailed from Taran Taran, shifted to Nanded Sahib in Maharashtra and then moved to Pakistan. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in September 2011 for the murder of a youth in Tarn Taran in 2008. In January 2014, he had attacked the officials of Patiala Central Jail.
On April 8, 2016, he had fired eight bullets at the Students Organisation of India (SOI) president at the Student Centre in Punjab University, Chandigarh. He is also accused of killing
Hoshiarpur sarpanch Satnam Singh outside a gurdwara in Sector 38 (west) Chandigarh in April 2017. It was a case of contract killing hired by a Hoshiarpurbased transporter to murder the sarpanch. In 2018, gangster Dilpreet Singh Dhahan alias Baba was arrested for a shooting attempt at Punjabi singer Parmish Verma.