Punjab: security up in 4 prisons as intel warns of jailbreak plan

The development comes few days after Punjab witnessed back-to-back incidents of violence and security breach, allegedly planned and executed by the gangsters operating from abroad with the help of local criminals, including murder of kabaddi player Sandeep Singh Nangal Ambian on March 14, RPG attack on police intelligence HQs in Mohali on May 9 and gruesome killing of singer-rapper Sidhu Moosewala on May 29.

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The letter written by the joint director, SIB (MHA) to Punjab Police DGP says that “according to a reliable input, Pakistan-based operative Harvinder Singh alias Rinda has conceived a jail break plan in Punjab in coming days to ensure release of some prominent gangsters and militants”.

“Besides utilising his Punjab-based cohorts, Rinda is also likely to rope in some jehadi elements in execution of the plan. The likely targets of execution could be Bathinda jail, Ferozepur jail, Amritsar jail or Ludhiana jail,” reads the letter.

Rinda, a wanted terrorist-gangster considered close to BKI chief Wadhawa Singh and ‘being protected’ by the ISI in Pakistan, is a close associate of Lakhvir Singh Landa, a gangster hiding in Canada and the key conspirator of RPG attack on Punjab Police’s intelligence HQs, said Punjab Police.

It is suspected that Rinda reached Pakistan via Nepal after acquiring a fake passport.

Rinda, 35, is also suspected of carrying out a terror attack at the Nawanshahr Crime Investigating Agency building on November 8 last year. In May this year, in a joint operation of Punjab and Haryana police also arrested four terror suspects from Karnal who were allegedly travelling to Telangana to deliver a consignment of weapons, ammunition and IEDs that was dropped via drones in a field of Ferozepur, on the directions of Rinda.

On Sunday, Punjab Jails Minister Harjot Singh Bains reached Ludhiana central jail on a surprise inspection. He told the The Indian Express that his department was taking all measures to make prisons of Punjab free from mobile phones. “In 2.5 months of the AAP coming to power, we have recovered at least 1,000 mobile phones from jails. It is a record… Adequate security has been deployed across all jails in Punjab,” he said.