The Gurdaspur district Police has foiled a major attempt to revive terrorism in Punjab by busting a sleeper cell of the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) on September 15, 2013 with the arrest of 3 persons and recovery of sophisticated weapons, including an AK-47 rifle and foreign made small weapons.Disclosing this here today, Mr. Sukhwant Singh Gill, SSP said that the district Police has arrested Sukhjinder Singh s/o Sucha Singh r/o village Guria, PS Purana Shalla, Gurdaspur, Narinder Pal Singh s/o Surjit Singh r/o H.No.24/6, Scheme No.1, Improvement Trust Colony, Gurdaspur, and Surinder Singh @ Chhinda s/o Balkar Singh r/o village Kiri Afgana, PS Sri Hargobindpur, Police District Batala. He said that one AK-47 rifle with one magazine and 20 cartridges, one 0.38 bore Smith & Wesson revolver (made in US) with 5 cartridges and one 0.45 bore Taurus pistol (made in Brazil) with 3 cartridges have been recovered from them.
He revealed that developing available intelligence and operational leads received from busting of terrorist modules by the Amritsar Police and the Fatehgarh Sahib Police, the Gurdaspur Police has unveiled a terrorist gang armed with sophisticated weapons, tasked by terrorist leaders sitting abroad for specific targeting of a Pathankot-based Shiv Sena (Bal Thakre) leader with the aim of disturbing the hard-earned peace in Punjab. He informed that the terrorists were travelling in a silver colored Ford-Figo Car No.PB-06-S-1313 , when nabbed by a police party. Two motorcycles being used by the gang have also been seized. An FIR No.83 dated 15-09-2013 u/s 17, 18, 20 Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, 120-B/ 153-A IPC, 25 Arms Act has been registered in Police Station Purana Shalla and investigations are being conducted to completely uncover the module and find its linkages and associates, he added.
He disclosed that the preliminary questioning of arrested persons has revealed a sinister design to revive terrorism in the 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 sleeper cell was being controlled by foreign-based terrorists Harminder Singh @ Mintu and Harmeet Singh @ Ph.D. , he added.He said that necessary coordination with the Amritsar Commissionerate Police and the Fatehgarh Sahib Police was being done for examining the cross-linkages between the three modules recently unearthed and further investigations were in progress.