Terror suspect arrested in Punjab

PATIALA - A suspected Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) extremist, suspected of planting explosives at two places in Punjab in recent months, was arrested from Punjab’s Patiala town Monday, police said.

Terror suspect Pargat Singh was staying as a paying guest under an assumed name at the house of a Punjab police assistant sub-inspector in Patiala, about 70 km from Chandigarh.

Patiala district police chief R.S. Khatra told reporters that Pargat was involved in planting explosives outside a cooking gas bottling plant near Nabha town, 25 km from here, in January this year.

He also planted explosives outside the Indian Air Force base at Halwara, near Ludhiana, in February.

Khatra said that Pargat visited Malaysia earlier this year where he met some terrorists. He later went to Pakistan for training and returned to India via Nepal in May this year.

Pargat lived in Patiala, Karnal and Ambala in recent months.

As a paying guest in Patiala, he told his landlord that he was doing a course in English. A voter identity card in another name was recovered from his possession.

Pargat is an associate of another KLF terrorist Bakshish Singh, who was arrested in the state in May, Khatra said.

Police officials did not rule out the possibility of Pargat trying to re-group terror elements in the state to revive terrorism.

Punjab faced a bloody phase of terrorism between 1981 and 1995, leaving nearly 25,000 people dead.