Punjab police, BSF foil ISI plan for an orgy of violence all over

On Tuesday night, government forces in Punjab foiled a Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence plan to eliminate top political leaders and engineer large-scale killings in the country.

In a joint operation, the Punjab police and the Border Security Force arrested five people including a Pak national, a human bomb and two terrorists in the Tarn Taran district. They recovered a huge quantity of arms, ammunition and heroin from them.

Punjab Director General of Police P C Dogra said the ISI plan was against top Akali Dal leaders, including the state Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Bharatiya Janata Party leaders. The modus operandi was human bombs and ISI agents were to engineer large-scale killings in buses, trains and other crowded places during India's 50th Independence day celebrations. They were also to hit economic targets.

Dogra said the arrested have been identified as Lahore resident Abi Saloom, human bomb Sewa Singh alias Bhag Singh, terrorists Sukhwinder Singh, Raj Singh alias Buta Singh and Balwant Singh. Balwant Singh was working as a langri in the Golden temple at Amritsar, and was a nodal point for all terrorist actions in Punjab.

He said security forces recovered 40 kilograms of RDX, 36 kgs of heroin, an AK-56 rifle, 33 AK-56 cartridges, one .30-bore pistol, 10 pistol cartridges, two bombs and a large amount of explosive material and equipment.

On an intelligence tip-off, the Punjab police and the BSF had joinlty laid an ambush in the Rattoke area in Tarn Taran district. The party noticed three people coming over from the Pakistan side. When they were challenged, the infiltrators fired at the forces. The forces, however, successfully apprehended them.

The security forces found one haver sack each on Saloom and Singh. Saloom's sack yeilded 16 packets of heroin, while 40 cakes of black RDX of one pound each, an AK-56 rifle, two AK-47 magazines, 33 cartridges, two human bomb switches, a wireless set and electric and non-electric detonators were found on Singh.

On interrogation Singh disclosed he had crossed over to Pakistan with a Sikh pilgrim jatha on April 10 through the Attari border. He was received in Pakistan by Lakhbir Singh Rode of the International Sikh Youth Federation and trained by the ISI in handling arms and explosives in Lahore.

UNI