Police and military officers have captured a fugitive Indian terrorist hiding out in Pattaya wanted for a 1995 bombing in India that killed 18 people, including the head of Punjab state.
Sikh fugitive Jagtar Singh (centre), alias Tara, one of the convicted assassins of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh is taken away by Corrections Department officials and policemen at the Criminal court on Tuesday. (AFP photo)
A team of Chon Buri provincial police and soldiers from the 14th Army Circle arrested a man identified in Thai police and media as Gurmeet Singh, 37. However, international-media reports, including India's Hindustan Times, revealed the fugitive taken into custody actually was Jagtar "Tara" Singh, who has been hiding in Thailand on a Pakistani passport for months under the identity of one of his co-conspirators in the 1995 attack.
Convicted terrorist bomber Jagtar “Tara” Singh, arrested in Pattaya Monday night as “Gurmeet Singh,” was known to have been hiding out months. (EPA photo)
The real Gurmeet Singh, 42, was released on parole in December 2013 after serving 18 years in prison for his part in the attack, which killed former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh and 17 others outside the Punjob civil secretariat.
Acting on information provided by Indian officials, police and soldiers raided a house on Soi Mabyailia in tambon Nong Phreu in Bang Lamung district around 7.30pm Monday, Thai media reported today.
Officers also arrested Pakistani national Ali Alat, 48, the owner of the house. The Indian newspaper identified Alat as "Khalat Bari" and quoted Indian government sources as saying the Pakistani was sheltering the Khalistan Tiger Force chief at the behest of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence.
The two men were taken to Nong Phreu police station. Alat, who told Thai media he did not know of Singh's criminal background, was to be charged with harbouring a fugitive.
"It took quite some time to arrest him. We had been following him for a while, but at one point he slipped off the radar," national police spokesman Pol Lt Gen Prawut Thawornsiri told The Associated Press.
The Sikh militant was one of the masterminds in the assassination of then chief minister Beant Singh by a suicide bomber outside the Punjab civil secretariat on Aug 31, 1995. The explosion occurred after the 73-year-old Indian politician - a Sikh who oversaw a controversial crackdown on armed Sikh militants in the state -- left his second-floor office, As the chief minister got into his car at 5.07pm, the bomber set off the explosive. The minister's automobile and two escort vehicles were torn to pieces and 17 others died.
Singh was arrested and sentenced to life in prison in 1996. But he has been on the run since 2004 after he and three other partners in the bombing tunnelled out of the high-security Burail Model Jail in Chandigarh. Two were recaptured, one is hiding in Pakistan and, the paper reported, Singh was known to be hiding in Thailand since the middle of last year.
Pol Maj Gen Nitipong Niamnoi, head of Chon Buri police, said Indian authorities had sought cooperation from other countries, including Thailand, to help apprehend the suspect.
The Hindustan Times reported that Punjab police had spent three weeks in Thailand in September, but Singh disappeared.
Thai media quoted Mr Alat telling police that Singh had phoned him on Jan 1 to seek his help, saying authorities were seeking him because of an expired passport. He reportedly offered 30,000 baht to rent the house for 2-3 days.
Indian media, however, say "Alat" was fully aware of Singh's identity and is the brother of Sultan Bari, a Pakistan-based agent of the ISI intelligence agency.
Pol Maj Gen Nitipong said police would contact the Indian embassy to take Singh.