Punjab cop-turned-criminal escapes custody for sixth time

The police suspect that Baljinder’s “contacts” inside the jail had got the iron bars of the window cut the night before where he was to be kept during his appearance at court. He is believed to have escaped through it the evening.

Baljinder was last arrested in 2006 with 1 kg of heroin and Rs 1 lakh fake currency.

“The intelligence wing of the Punjab Police had issued an advisory to the Amritsar SSP sometime back that Baljinder, who is a top criminal, could escape from jail as per his past record. But the Amritsar police turned a blind eye to that and now he has escaped,” said a senior intelligence official. However, Amritsar SSP Kunwar Vijay Partap Singh denied having got any such information.

Interestingly, when Baljinder was arrested under the NDPS in 2006, he had told the police that his name was Satnam Singh allias Satta. It was only after he had spent a few months in jail that one of the officers recognised him as wanted criminal Baljinder.

When he continued to deny it and insist he was Satnam Singh, the jail authorities took fingerprints of one of his relatives and matched them with Baljinder’s. The police then registered another case against him for concealing his identity.

Apart from duping the authorities in Bathinda and Sangrur, in January 2004, he had dodged the Haryana Police while being taken on transit remand. He is wanted by the neighbouring state for robbery and smuggling.

In the past, he had also made his way out of Ganganagar jail in Rajasthan. In that escape, one of his accomplices — an ex-constable of Punjab Police, Joginder Singh — was killed while trying to climb the jail wall. Baljinder escaped by throwing a rope over electric wires.

As per Punjab Police records, there are more than 23 cases registered against Baljinder in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

He was recruited as a Special Police Officer (SPO) in Jagroan Police in 1992. He resigned from his job in 1998. He is believed to have committed his first crime in May 2001 when he along with his associates snatched a Maruti car from Majithia road in Amritsar.

“Then he graduated in the criminal world and established contacts with the Khalistan Commando Force (Panjwar) and worked as their drug and weapon courier, besides supplying information to them as he was in direct contact with Paramjit Singh Panjwar, the chief of the KCF,” claimed a senior police official.

In May 2001 he is believed to have looted Rs 2.43 lakh from a petrol pump in Talwara, in June 2002 Rs 4.25 lakh from Punjab National Bank, Meelga, on Mirthal-Pathankot road. He looted another branch of the Punjab National Bank later, in Nagrota near Una.

Pointing out that this time Baljinder did not escape from jail but from the courtcomplex, Jail Superintendent S P Singh said it was the district police that was guarding him. “The jail authorities cannot be held responsible for his escape,” he said.