Thailand Extradites Terrorist Jagtar Tara to India (Lead)

Chandigarh, Jan 16 (IANS) Authorities in Thailand Friday issued orders for the extradition of Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF) chief Jagtar Singh Tara and a Punjab Police team was given custody of the terrorist in Bangkok.

"A four-member Punjab Police party positioned in Bangkok is bringing Jagtar Singh Tara to India today (Friday) after his extradition by Thailand. After completion of administrative formalities, Jagtar Singh Tara has been handed over to the Punjab Police team today," a Punjab Police spokesman said here.

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 Jagtar Singh Tara in Thailand.

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

Tara is 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, aged around 40, was living in disguise near the beach resort town of Pattiyya in Thailand. Thai authorities had said that he had been living illegally in Thailand 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 later but Tara remained elusive.

Tara would be produced before a court in Patiala town, 80 km from here, Saturday where police remand for his questioning would be sought, the spokesman said.