New Delhi — The police are searching for a mysterious man named Kohli who is said to have organized the explosions in the Capital last week and supplied the transistor bombs.
Intelligence sources said that one of the arrested suspects Mohinder Singh Oberoi, has revealed during interrogation that Kohli was their main contact man who handed him six transistor bombs on May 9, the night before the city was rocked by the explosions and told him to deliver them to six youths in Tilak Nagar who would do the needful.
According to Oberoi, Kohli spelt out the details of the plan to terrorize the city at a meeting in Kartar Singh Narang’s house in West Patel Nagar on April 21.
They met again at Narang’s house on May 4 or 5 (Oberoi is apparently not clear about the date) and Kohli told them that the transistor bombs had arrived in Delhi. He said that he had contacted a man named Jagdish Singh, to arrange for men to plant the bombs in the city.
On May 9, Oberoi was given six transistor bombs by Kohli and told to go toa certain water tank in Tilak Nagar where he would be met by six youths. He was told to hand over the bombs to them.
Accordingly he went to the tank. The youths waiting there said they had been sent by Jagdish Singh. Oberoi gave them the bombs and disappeared.
Kohli is also believed to have supplied the explosives seized from Narang’s house. Over seven kilograms of a sophisticated variety of gunpowder and other explosive chemicals were allegedly found in the advocate’s house.
Oberoi has reportedly told the interrogating agencies that they were planning to blow up a 10storied building in the Capital. Kohli had brought them the necessary materials including literature on making bombs. They were thinking of making the bombs in Narang’s house but the details of the plan had not been worked out and they were waiting for the signal from Kohli, Oberoi is believed to have disclosed.
Both Kohli and Jagdish Singh have gone underground. A series of raids by the police in their search for these two key persons has drawn a blank.
Inquiries about Mohinder Singh Oberoi have revealed that this 40yearold timber merchant from Deshbandhu Gupta Road was a deeply religious man to the point of fanaticism. He was also a member of the Dal Khalsa as were the other two arrested suspects. Narang and Mohinder Singh Khalsa who subsequently died in police custody.
After Operation Blue Star, Oberoi told his interrogators, he took to visiting Amritsar regularly. He spent most of his time in the gurdwaras in the city, discussing the Army action in the Golden Temple and the “insult to the community.”
But it was only after the antiSikh riots in November that he was consumed by a burning desire for revenge.
He spent his time traveling between Delhi, Amritsar and Himachal Pradesh, talking to Sikhs and establishing contact with other likeminded persons.
Sources disclosed that Oberoi said during interrogation that after the riots, the Sikhs felt helpless and useless. Most of the people he met talked of arming ‘themselves and taking revenge.
In March this year he was given Narnag’s name and address in Amritsar and told to go there. He would be met by a man named Kohli who would tell him how he could help avenge the Sikhs for the riots and Operation Blue Star, Oberoi, was told.
On his return to Delhi, he started visiting Narang’s house regularly. He met the lawyer, Khalsa, Kohli and others whose names he could not recall.
Narang is believed to have confirmed Oberoi’s account of how the bomb conspiracy was hatched and executed.
He also said that he wanted to avenge the November riots and that he was greatly upset by the connivance of the Congress and the police against the Sikhs, sources revealed.
Although the police managed to seize a list of about 70 to 80 names from Narang’s house, including the names and addresses of contact men similar to Narang in other cities in northern India they have not been able to trace a single person.
Most of them are believed to have gone into hiding. Others, the police fear, will not be caught simply because there is no concrete evidence of their involvement in the conspiracy.
The police have obtained considerable information from interrogating the suspects, and now the emphasis has shifted to tracing the other links, police sources said. It is only if they can nab the other and get information about them during interrogation that the police can hope to uncover the wider ramifications of the case. The police have the tough job of following an invisible chain.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 31, 1985
