PATIALA: The CBI team assisted by Punjab Police, last week raided the residence of Gurmeet Singh, prime suspect in the assassination of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh.
Gurmeet Singh’s father Jaswinder Singh, an employee of the Punjab University, is in custody for interrogation.
Of the five alleged to have hatched the assassination plot, four belong to Patiala, three of whom live in the same locality Guru Nanak Nagar. The house of Dilawar Singh alias Billa, the human bomb, is barely 50 yards from Gurmeet Singh’s residence.
The fourth suspect has been identified as Balwant Singh, who lived in a rented room in a house in Rattan Nagar in Tripuri Township. He was stated missing since August 24. He was the gunman of a local journalist for about seven years and, till August last, resided in the journalists’ house. He rarely used his uniform while discharging his duties as a gunman. Dilawar Singh had not finished his graduation but had joined Punjab Police as a Special Police Officer (SPO). However, his services were terminated six months ago. His house was. sealed by the police after being searched. Lakhwinder Singh alias Lakha, a police constable, was arrested in Chandigarh after being identified by the person who repainted the car purchased in Delhi and used by the assassins. His father, Darshan Singh, an ASI in the Punjab police, was transferred to Jallandhar four years ago. The police raided his house too and sealed it thereafter.
The four suspects were intimate friends, residents of Guru Nanak Nagar. All in their early 20s and mostly introverts, they contributed significantly towards saving people during the floods that ravaged the district in 1993.
With the evidence of the involvement of these four in the Beant Singh assassination case, investigators now conjecture that the conspiracy could have been hatched in Patiala.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 15, 1995
