The Hindu : New Delhi News : Babbar Khalsa militant nabbed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 04, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Babbar Khalsa militant nabbed

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, JAN. 3. A former Babbar Khalsa International militant convicted in an attempt-to-murder case about two decades ago, in which he jumped parole and lived in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Thailand for over 16 years on fake passport, was arrested by the Special Staff of the South-West Delhi on December 29. The accused is also wanted in cheating and forgery cases by the United States enforcement agencies.

According to the Deputy Commissioner of Police (South-West Delhi), the Special Staff Sub-Inspector Ravinder Kumar Tyagi received a tip-off that a criminal wanted by the Indian and the United States police was trying to obtain a forged passport near the R.K. Puram passport office. Subsequently, he along with Sub-Inspector Raj Kumar, ASI Charan Singh and others laid a trap and arrested the suspect.

He was identified as Prem Pal Singh, a native of Fatehgarh Sahib in Punjab. During interrogation, Prem Pal disclosed that his father was an Army officer. In 1985, he was working as a driver with Pepsu Road Corporation at Patiala when he came in contact with the Babbar Khalsa International terrorists. A few weeks later, he was included in the conspiracy to eliminate A.P. Pandey, the Additional DGP (Vigilance), Punjab police. Mr. Pandey was seriously injured in the attack but survived miraculously.

Prem Pal was arrested in that case and convicted for 11 years of imprisonment. However, he came out on parole in 1988 and vanished from the scene. He fled to Thailand on his brother's original passport and from there went to Germany where he lived for about five months. He then managed to illegally enter the United Kindgom onboard a ship and reached Southall in 1989. There he started working as a construction contractor.

In 1991, Prem Pal obtained a forged passport in the name of Tursayem Singh Chahal and went to New York where he got driving licence to work as a taxi driver. He lived in New York till October 2003. In due course, he allegedly committed cheating and thefts and was subsequently listed in the list of criminals wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

After the FBI started mounting pressure on him, Prem Pal contacted his brother, Jasbir Singh, and asked him to send a forged passport using which he would flee from the United States. However, Jasbir sent his own passport instead. On that passport, he reached Delhi and was arrested by the immigration officials after they found that there was no arrival/departure stamp of either of the U.S. or the Indian authorities on the passport. This time, Prem Pal got away with only a fine of Rs. 50,000. When released from jail, Prem Pal went to his village and lived there in anonymity till May last year. He again obtained a forged passport in his name from the Chandigarh passport office and visited London along with his wife. He lived there for a month and came back in November last. He was trying to get the U.S. visa on his forged passport through touts operating from outside the passport office at R.K. Puram when the Special Staff arrested him.

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