CHANDIGARH: Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) terrorist Narain Singh Chaura told his wife he was attending an anniversary at the Golden Temple before leaving for Amritsar where he attempted to kill Shiromani Akali Dal President and former Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal.
After Chaura was arrested in Amritsar, his wife Jasmeet Kaur remained calm as police carried out a search at their house. "My husband got up early today and left the house around 5.45 am. He told me he had to attend a death anniversary at the Golden Temple," Kaur said.
She said, "I don't think what he did was right. He had been earlier been lodged in Amritsar, Ludhiana and Gurdaspur jails as many cases had been registered against him."
Kaur further said that her husband would invariably go to mark his presence at birth and death anniversaries of ex-militants.
Police from the Dera Baba Nanak police station in Gurdaspur district reached his house an hour after the assassination attempt and seized several pen drives, diaries and documents.
Locals in Dera Baba Nanak, where Chaura is presently staying, know him, but after the incident everyone is tight-lipped. His native village, Chaura Bajwa, is just three kilometers away from Dera Baba Nanak. The villagers recall that Chaura’s family left the village after the 1988 floods and never returned.
A villager said that Chaura is a soft-spoken person. "We knew of his reputation as a militant, but he never discussed his past with anybody," he added.
Meanwhile, Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Raghbir Singh strongly condemned the incident. He demanded that the state government probe the matter thoroughly to expose the miscreants and their motive behind it. He said it was an attack on a person who was undergoing 'sewa' at the Golden Temple complex, awarded by the Akal Takht.
Blaming the ruling AAP government, opposition parties questioned the security lapses in the Golden Temple and demanded a high court monitored probe.
Senior Shiromani Akali Dal leader and brother-in-law of Sukhbir Badal, Bikram Singh Majithia, said the murderous attack was aimed at finishing the moderate Akali leadership of Punjab and spoiling the peace in the border state by creating a communal divide. "We demand a high court monitored probe into the entire incident to unmask the entire conspiracy behind it," he said.
Majithia said the ‘sewa’ as mandated by Akal Takht will continue unabated. We will not be cowed down by such cowardly attacks”.
Hitting out at chief minister Bhagwant Mann for taking "fake credit" for nabbing the accused, Majithia displayed video evidence to show the state police was nowhere near the scene of the crime and the militant was allowed to approach the Akali leader despite Punjab Police claims that the attacker was under surveillance. "This indicates that this was part of a pre-planned attack and that the attacker was a sponsored hit man of ISI and agencies besides being a close associate of Congress MP Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa."
Pointing out that Chaura was the brother of Narinder Singh Chaura, Majithia said, "Congress leader Sukhjinder Randhawa got Narinder elected to the Panchayat Samiti unanimously." He also asserted that two cases against Chaura were cancelled when the Congress was in power and that he was also freed in 2018 when Randhawa was a minister in the Congress government.
He said, "The state DGP and Amritsar police have a lot to answer for." He said the police should explain how a dreaded militant was allowed to roam in the Golden Temple complex for two days and why he was not nabbed earlier.
Randhawa denied allegations that he was instrumental in making Chaura a member. "Whenever an incident involves a gangster or militant, my name is unnecessarily dragged into it," he said.
He criticized the Punjab Police for their failure to prevent the incident. "Everybody in the police department knew Chaura was living in Dera Baba Nanak and had militant leanings. He should have been taken into preventative custody," he added.
Meanwhile, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann strongly condemned the attack and directed police to investigate the incident. The chief minister also lauded the promptness of the Punjab Police. "Punjab Police prevented a major incident from happening today. It is the result of the promptness of the Punjab Police that the conspiracy to defame Punjab and Punjabis has failed," Mann said in a post on X.
