CHANDIGARH: Vital information about prime suspects in the Beant Singh assassination case and. their plans to escape abroad have been revealed during a raid at their hideout at Jamshedpur, sources said.

The raid carried out jointly by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Punjab Police had resulted in the arrest of three persons. However, it is learnt, Vikram Billa, an accomplice of Jagiar Singh Hawara, the man who is believed to have masterminded the entire assassination plot, managed to escape from the hideout before the raid.

The hideout was probably being kept by militants as a place to escape abroad as passports of some of the main suspects were found in the raid. It is learnt that Jagtar Singh Hawara, Vikram Billa, Puran Chora and another suspect were together spotted in Fatchgarh Sahib about two weeks before the August 31 bomb attack. Both Hawara and Billa belong to villages in Fatehgarh Sahib district. Hawara is believed to have been going to Pakistan regularly. All of them had Babbar Khalsalinks, Puran Chora, ‘was earlier with Khalistan Liberation Force but subsequently joined hands with Babbars. They appeared to have together planned the attack and Gurmeet Singh and Lakhwinder Singh, who are now in CBI custody, were associated as caucused. Investigations have further established international connections of these suspects. A few telephone booths in Ropar and Fatehgarh Sahib have been identified from where they and their sympathizers were in constant touch with their patrons abroad to seek instructions and to get money.

The fact that militants and their sympathizers in Punjab are constantly in touch with their patrons abroad, particularly in Pakistan was also brought out during kidnapping of the son of a former union minister, Ram Niwas Mirdha. It is learnt a link with the brain behind the kidnapping was established in Pakistan and atop Punjab police officer spoke to him on telephone. It was at this stage that an understanding was reached between the Punjab Police and the militants according to which the militants were not to harm Mirdha’s son and the police was not to eliminate a militant, Prof Deepak.

The militant abroad, it is learnt, had then also indicated their determination to strike back in Punjab in an improved and changed manner which “would not depict them as extortionists and bad elements among masses.

Article extracted from this publication >>  September 22, 1995