CHANDIGARH: The Punjab police arrested three persons, including two prison officials, on Tuesday evening in the Nabha jailbreak case. The two arrested officials are Bhim Singh, the assistant jail superintendent who had met the escaped inmates a day before the incident. and Jagmeet Singh, the head warder. The third person arrested is a civilian named Tejinder Sharma alias Happy, owner of Shagun Sweets in Nabha.
Senior Superintendent of Police (Patiala) Gurmeet Singh Chauhan said the three were being charged with abetment and criminal conspiracy to facilitate the jailbreak in which six inmates managed to escape.
The police have registered a case against 29 people, including nine prison employees. Apart from the two arrested, the others include head constable Sahib Singh, constables Hans Singh and Jaswinder Singh. The accused had snatched self-loading rifles (SLRs) from the two constables before fleeing.
The alleged mastermind Palwinder Singh, during the initial interrogation, said the plan was hatched a few months ago at Mudki in Punjab’s Ferozepur district and said a total of ten people got the six fugitives rescued.
They came in four stolen vehicles. While four of them were in police uniforms, one posed as a decoy prisoner to be handed over. The rest acted as visitors who had come to meet prisoners in the jail.
The main aim was to get gangsters Harjinder Singh Bhullar alias Vicky Gondar and Gurpreet Singh Sekhon. Khalistan Liberation Force chief Harminder Singh Mintoo and the other militant, Kashmir Singh, became part of the plan just a day earlier.
The fact the planning was being carried out for long can be gauged from the fact all four cars used in the escape were snatched by the accused from different parts of the state in the past few days, a police official said.