Week on, no headway in former Khalistani militant’s murder case
A week after former chief of militant outfit Bhindranwale Tiger Force of Khalistan (BTFK) Rattandeep Singh (49) was shot dead, the Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar police have failed to make any arrest in the case
Jalandhar : A week after former chief of militant outfit Bhindranwale Tiger Force of Khalistan (BTFK) Rattandeep Singh (49) was shot dead, the Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar police have failed to make any arrest in the case.
On April 4, Rattandeep, who hailed from Haryana’s Karnal, was killed by unidentified assailants in SBS Nagar’s Balachaur while he was sitting in his car along with his nephew Gurpreet Singh.
One of the police officials privy to the investigation said there is no breakthrough in the case as the assailants are yet to be identified.
“Police have been working on different angles but nothing concrete has come out as of now,” an official said.
SBS Nagar superintendent of police (SP) Mukesh Kumar said the police have collected technical evidences from the spot and CCTV footages from the area around the crime scene for the identification of the accused.
“The details of the case could not be shared at this stage but the police have collected vital clues related to the incident,” he said.
Soon after the incident, gangster Gopi Nawanshahria took to social media to claim responsibility for the killing.
On the statement of Rattandeep’s nephew, a case was registered under Section 302 (murder) of the IPC besides the Arms Act.
A one-time hardcore militant, Rattandeep was the prime suspect in the bomb blast in the parking area of the old passport office in Sector 34, Chandigarh, on June 30, 1999, in which four people were injured. He owned the scooter used for carrying the bomb.
He was also behind the blast on the railway bridge in Panipat the same year and had planted an improvised explosive device (IED) at the Shahabad-Markanda bridge in 1998. He was an accused in the arms recoveries in Jind district in 1996 and 2000.
Though Haryana Police arrested him in August 1999, he managed to escape. He was the kingpin of a group of militants who planted explosives in a vehicle near Circuit House in Amritsar in May 2010. He had smuggled the consignment of weapons and explosives from across the border.
A state special operations cell (SSOC) of Punjab Police finally arrested Rattandeep from the outskirts of Gorakhpur in eastern Uttar Pradesh on September 17, 2014. He was carrying a Pakistani passport and identity card in the name of Hussain Sheikh Zahid. An official said Rattandeep was a Pakistan-based militant, who had been living there since 1993. He visited India to carry out terror strikes.
Jailed for his terror links, Rattandeep was released in 2019 after he completed his term. Since then, he had been staying with his family in Karnal as no case was pending against him.