Punjab Police recover 15 kg RDX, ammunition

AMRITSAR - A huge cache of explosives and ammunition was recovered from Punjab’s Jalandhar district on the basis of interrogation of an arrested Sikh terrorist who was a French national, police said here Sunday.

The Punjab police had arrested five terrorists in this holy city Wednesday. They are identified as Pal Singh, a French national, Kulwant Singh, Gurmukh Singh, Jagtar Singh and Darshan Singh. Pal Singh was earlier staying in France and had taken weapons training from Pakistan. All of them were trying to revive terrorism in Punjab.

“On the basis of inputs given by terrorist Pal Singh, we have recovered 15 kg of RDX, three detonators, one machine gun, one AK-47, 250 live cartridges, three bundles of fuse wire and a battery switch. They had planned to execute major terror activities in Punjab,” said a police officer of the special operation cell here Sunday.

“The interrogation is still on and we are hoping to make more recovery of explosives and arms in the coming days. We have also got some vital clues about their accomplices hiding in different parts of this region,” he added.

This recovery was made from Dhandowal village near Shahkot town in Jalandhar district, around 150 km from state capital Chandigarh.

Police sources said that Pal Singh had admitted that he was closely associated with dreaded terrorist Chaura Singh and had received the consignment of explosives and arms from him.

Chaura is wanted for many crimes and had also played an instrumental role in the Burail jail break in Chandigarh.

Babbar Khalsa terrorists Jagtar Singh Hawara, Jagtar Singh Tara and Paramjit Singh Bhaura had made a sensational escape from the high-security Burail jail using a tunnel on the intervening night of Jan 21-22, 2004.

At the time of the arrest, police had recovered two AK-47 rifles, five magazines, 20 live cartridges and 200 armoury piercing cartridges from the possession of the terrorists.

During the last few months, police have arrested at least 18 dreaded terrorists and recovered explosives and arms from various parts of Punjab.

Amritsar is around 250 km from state capital Chandigarh.