CBI applies for extradition of Beant Singh 'killers'

The Central Bureau of Investigation has initiated action to extradite three Punjab militants from the US, Britain and Germany for their alleged involvement in the assassination of Punjab chief minister Beant Singh. The effort follows the signing of an extradition treaty between the United States and India last month.

Beant Singh was killed in a bomb blast at the state secretariat in Chandigarh on August 31, 1995.

The CBI is seeking the extradition of Manjinder Singh Grewal from Britain, Resham Singh from Germany and Harjeet Singh Gill from the US.

According to sources, Interpol's New York desk has been alerted and requested to keep a track of Harjeet Singh in co-operation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The CBI says Harjeet Singh, an Indian-born US citizen, has frequently moved across the US these past two years to evade arrest. He is currently reported to be staying at a place called Charleswood. He entered India in 1994 on the pretext of attending a religious conference in Amritsar, agency sources said.

Manjinder Singh Grewal, originally a resident of Narangwal in Ludhiana district, another suspect in the Beant Singh killing, has lived in Kent in the United Kingdom, since December 1985, claiming to be a British citizen.

Manjinder, who allegedly came to India to execute the killing, stayed in Delhi and established contact with Balwant Singh and Jagtar Singh Hawara, the prime accused in the case. The duo are believed to have masterminded the plan to kill the Punjab chief minister.

Another accused, Resham Singh, has a German passport and is believed to live in Mergwich near Durin in Germany. The CBI, after getting vital information from some of the accused in its custody, has informed Interpol, Bonn, to trace the militant.

All the suspects are believed to be activists of the Babar Khalsa International, the organisation allegedly responsible for the world's worst-ever act of air terrorism, when Air-India's Kanishka Boeing 747 went down over the Atlantic on June 23, 1985 killing 325 people.

Balwant Singh and Dilawar Singh, during interrogation, named some of those allegedly involved in the Beant Singh assassination and who are absconding since the CBI filed its two sets of chargesheets in September 1995.

The CBI investigation revealed that Jagtar Singh Hawara, a key conspirator who was arrested by the Punjab police in December 1995, had also planned to kill then prime minister P V Narasimha Rao and then Punjab police chief K P S Gill.