NEW DELHI: Balwinder Singh Nigah, the accused in the attempt to blow up an Air India aircraft, remanded to police custody for 15 days by a Delhi court Tuesday, was allegedly working for the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF), the public prosecutor said.
Balwinder, was a duty officer in the “Chef Air” company which supplies food and other catering items to Air India on December 1.
A steward found a bomb aboard an Air India Boeing 747 jet, just minutes before the plane was to take off for London and New York, Officials said. The 416 people aboard were evacuated, and the bomb was defused.
In Srinagar, Kashmir, center of a secessionist revolt against Indian rule, a caller telephoned a news agency to say a militant group planted the bomb. But the report could not be confirmed. The caller, claiming to be a spokesman for Muslim Janbaz (Crusader) Force, said, “We have planted the bomb. We are also going to strike at select targets in Delhi and Bombay”.
The Muslim Janbaz Force, one of several militant groups fighting for independence for Kashmir, kidnapped two Swedish engineers in March to draw attention to alleged atrocities committed by Indian security forces in Kashmir. The Swedes were released in July.
The gasoline bomb aboard the Boeing 747 jet was in a metal food container at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, airline officials said.
A.K. Singh, a senior police official, said a steward “opened the container and something fell out. It later turned out to be a bomb, but it did not have much power at all”.
The bomb consisted of a plastic container with a battery and wires as well as a vial of gasoline all wrapped in string, said another police official.
It was not immediately known whether the bomb, which was designed to go off by remote control, could have seriously damaged the plane had it gone off.
Air India spokesman Mohan Rao said the bomb was found after all 416 passengers and the crew had boarded Flight AI-111 for New York via London, The flight had arrived from the southern Indian city of Madras, Rao said.
In June 1985, all 329 people aboard an Air India Boeing 747 were killed when a bomb exploded aboard the air craft as it was flying from Toronto to Bombay. Two Canadian journalists had proved that this explosion was the work of Indian agents with the motive of bringing the Sikhs a bad name as terrorists.
RAJKOT: Nineteen people have died so far even as eight others were battling for life at the civil hospital here after consuming a killer brew on Friday in this western Indian city, police said.
Police commissioner C P Singh told the press of India that 24 medical stores, which had sold the concoction containing 58 to 70% alcohol, had been sealed. Three owners of the medical stores have been arrested in this connection, police said.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 6, 1991
