Another key accused held in Hawara case

CHANDIGARH: Making a yet another significant breakthrough the Punjab police, assisted by the Chandigarh police, arrested a key module, Jaspal Singh Tur, who had charted the plan to help Jagtar Singh Hawara and two other Babbar Khalsa militants to flee the country.
He was picked up from Delhi on Thursday night by a special police team and a pistol was recovered from him.
With his arrest the police also claimed to have busted a newly-formed Babbar Khalsa group which had, on its own, formulated plans to gun down important persons including former DGP KPS Gill, Lt Gen (retd) Dayal who had participated in the Operation Bluestar, SGPC president GS Tohra, IG SS Saini and religious heads like Baba Bhaniara and Ashutosh.
The group had reportedly evolved militant plans in close coordination with Babbar Khalsa chief Wadhawa Singh and his two right-hand men, Seva Singh (Norway) and Sohan Singh (Germany).
Jaspal, an amritdhari Sikh, had assumed the look of a Muslim to fly Hawara and others to Dubai.
A travel agent by profession Jaspal had been conspiring to execute the plan in coordination with Gurinder Singh alias Goldy, who was arrested early this month. Besides running two travel agencies in Mohali and Ambala, Jaspal also owned a training school in Mumbai.
Jaspal told the police that he had left for Dubai on January 19 to undertake an exploratory visit, three days before Hawara and two other militants escaped from the Burail jail. He returned from Dubai on January 28 to carry out the plan of taking away the three militants on fake passports.
However, as soon as he landed in Mumbai, much to his surprise the police had built adequate pressure on all those involved in the jail escapade, as within three days of his return Narain Singh Chaura and Baljit Kaur had been arrested.
Jaspal claimed that his efforts to establish contact with Hawara and others did not fructify as he went into hiding in view of the police pressure.
He also admitted to have made financial contributions to help Hawara escape the jail.
The police is now looking for another significant conduit, Gurdip Singh, driver of the car by which Hawara escaped after coming out of the jail.