Local Goa News

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Mintoo’s Goa links escaped probe

PANAJI/PONDA: Security agencies at the central level and in the state never probed the Goa connection of the Khalistani terrorist Harminder Singh Mintoo, who had been arrested by the Punjab police two years ago.
Sources said that it is only after the jailbreak and the subsequent recapture of Mintoo earlier this week in Delhi that the Goa police began a probe to ascertain his Goa links.
Mintoo did not come under the radar of security agencies perhaps because he did not disclose his Goa connection to the police in Punjab at the time of his arrest two years back, said a senior officer on condition of anonymity.

The police said that Mintoo had stayed in Goa for several years and that there were no inquiries even from the Punjab police.
News reports have said that Mintoo (49), chief of the banned Khalistan Liberation Force, is accused of being involved in 10 terror-related cases including an attack on Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim.
He was arrested in November 2014 by the Punjab police at the Delhi airport upon his arrival from Thailand.
The inquiry has been initiated to know as to who are his sympathisers in Goa, and why he was comfortable coming to the state.
The police are looking into every aspect related to Mintoo and his Goa links.
Mintoo was arrested by the special cell of the Delhi police at a railway station in Delhi on Monday morning, a day after he escaped from a high security prison in Punjab.
The KLF leader’s plan was to travel to Goa and thereafter flee the country via Nepal. Following the revelatory media reports, the state police are trying to establish Mintoo’s links with Goa.
Borim villagers have said that Mintoo had lived in the village from 1998 to 2009 with his parents and two brothers, who are presently living there with their mother. Their father passed away in 2009.
Mintoo’s wife and children left the house after he quit it.
Mintoo’s family had bought a plot and built a house in the village. He lived in the village, but never mingled with villagers.
Former Borim sarpanch Sunil Sawkar said the villagers have been aware of the fact that the family has been into real estate.
Mintoo’s brothers said that they are not in touch with the arrested Khalistani terrorist since the time he quit the house.
“We are with the nation and have severed all contacts with him. We are being dragged into this mess unnecessarily,” they said.

NT Network Goa News

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