Extradited Terrorist Jagtar Tara sent to Police Custody

Chandigarh, Jan 17 (IANS) A court in Punjab's Patiala town Saturday sent extradited Khalistani terrorist Jagtar Singh Tara - convicted in the assassination of then Punjab chief minister Beant Singh - to five-day police custody.

Tara was produced before the court of the duty magistrate by Punjab Police in connection with the murder of Rashtriya Sikh Sangat chief Rulda Singh.

The leader was shot at in his house in Patiala district July 28, 2009.

Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF) chief Tara was extradited by authorities in Thailand Friday and a Punjab Police team was given custody of the terrorist in Bangkok.

Tara was nabbed in Thailand Jan 6 following a coordinated operation of central agencies, Punjab Police and Thailand Police. The counter-intelligence wing of Punjab Police had tracked down Tara in Thailand.

A Bangkok court Jan 6 ordered that Tara will be extradited from Thailand to India.

Tara, aged around 40, was one of the terrorists convicted in the sensational assassination of then Punjab chief minister Beant Singh by a human bomb at the heavily-guarded Punjab secretariat complex here Aug 31, 1995.

Tara, who was using an assumed name Gurmeet Singh, was living in disguise near the beach resort town of Pattaya in Thailand.

Thai authorities said he was living illegally in the country for over four months.

Three terrorists - Tara, Jagtar Singh Hawara, Paramjit Singh Bhaura - and their accomplice Devi Singh, a murder convict living with them in the same prison barrack, had made a sensational escape by digging a 104-feet-long tunnel in the high-security Burail jail here on the intervening night of Jan 21-22, 2004.

Hawara and Bhaura were re-arrested by security agencies but Tara remained elusive.