Escaped Khalistan militant Harminder Mintoo arrested from Delhi

New Delhi: A day after daring daylight jailbreak in Nabha, Punjab, Khalistan Liberation Force Chief Harminder Mintoo was arrested from Delhi on Monday.

Mintoo and five others escaped from Nabha jail in Punjab on Sunday after armed men in police uniform tricked the sentries into opening the gates and bolted out with the inmates firing a hail of bullets.

Among the escapees was another terrorist Kashmira Singh, according to Punjab police chief Suresh Arora.

However, hours later, the alleged "mastermind" of the daring daylight jailbreak, Parminder Singh, was arrested on Sunday from Kairana in Uttar Pradesh's Shamli district when the getaway vehicle--a Toyota Fortuner--was stopped at a police picket.

A self-loading rifle (SLR), three rifles and several rounds of ammunition were recovered from the SUV during the search, UP's Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Daljit Singh Chaudhary had said.

After the six escaped, apparently without facing much resistance from the security personnel, Punjab government had sacked two senior prison officials, Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent, suspended ADGP (Jails) M K Tiwari, and formed an SIT to probe the jail break. It had ordered a separate inquiry committee headed by Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Jagpal Singh Sandhu to look into the "security lapses".

"There are two aspects. One is that the jailbreak will be probed and the second thing is lapses. Who is responsible, if there is any connivance?" the DGP had said.

Arora had said, "The unidentified assailants came in police fatigues and were carrying small firearms." He said they told the sentries that they had brought a prisoner along, tricking them into opening the gates.

He said over 35 rounds were fired but there was no casualty among the jail personnel, who were apparently taken offguard and did not offer any strong resistance.

"The firing was also done from inside the jail. We will see why the firing was not effective," the DGP said and added there is a "conspiracy somewhere".

"Had there been effective firing, it would have been the other way round," he had said.

Mintoo was arrested by Punjab police in November 2014 after he was deported from Thailand and was wanted in 10 terror cases.

Meanwhile, a woman was killed when the police, in a tizzy after the audacious jailbreak, opened fire at a vehicle which did not stop at a picket, about 20 km away from the jail.

Chaudhary said Parminder had told his interrogators that the escapees had split themselves into groups and had moved in the direction of Karnal and Panipat in Haryana.

Chaudhary said Parminder was an accused in the killing of a sub-inspector of Punjab police and had planned the escape with another gangster Prema, who had helped him flee from jail some time ago.

The others who fled were gangster Vicky Gaundar, Amandeep Dhotian, Gurpreet Sekhon, Nita Deol and Kashmira Singh, who is also a terrorist.

Mintoo was arrested in 10 cases including the 2008 attack on Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and recovery of explosives at Halwara Air Force Station in 2010.