‘KLF sleeper cell’ busted,three held

The police recovered sophisticated weapons,including an AK-47 rifle and foreign-made small weapons from the accused.

Disclosing this here today,Gurdaspur SSP Sukhwant Singh Gill said the police had arrested Sukhjinder Singh,a resident of Guria village in Purana Shalla police station in Gurdaspur; Narinder Pal Singh,a resident of Improvement Trust Colony,Gurdaspur; and Surinder Singh,resident of Kiri Afgana in Sri Hargobindpur police station in Batala police district.

He said that one AK-47 rifle with one magazine and 20 cartridges,one 0.38 bore Smith and Wesson revolver (made in US) with five cartridges and one 0.45 bore Taurus pistol (made in Brazil) with three cartridges had been recovered from them.

Gill said that with intelligence and operational leads received from busting of terrorist modules by the Amritsar Police and Fatehgarh Sahib Police,the Gurdaspur Police busted the gang which was “tasked by terrorist leaders sitting abroad for specifically targeting of a Pathankot-based Shiv Sena leader with the aim of disturbing the hard-earned peace in Punjab”.

An FIR has been lodged and investigations on the terror module’s linkages and associates are under way,he added.

“Preliminary questioning of the arrested persons has revealed a sinister design to revive terrorism in the (Punjab) state by foreign-based terrorist leaders who have motivated,supported and financed local modules for undertaking spectacular terrorist action by targeted killings of certain persons,with the underlying game-plan of fanning communal fires in the state,” the SSP said,adding that the sleeper cell was being controlled by foreign-based terrorists Harminder Singh aka Mintu and Harmeet Singh aka Ph.D.

An official said that after the three modules were unearthed in less than a month,it emerged during interrogations that more than 70 persons were identified as targets by the terrorists. The security of such persons has been enhanced.

ADGP Intelligence H S Dhillon confirmed that security of those who were under threat has been beefed up following the busting of the terror modules.