PATIALA: Nabha jail escapee and self-styled chief of the Khalistan Liberation Force
Harminder Mintoo died of cardiac arrest in Patiala on Wednesday.
Mintoo was lodged in the
Patiala Central Jail along with other accused of the 2016 jailbreak case.
Mintoo was rushed to the Government Rajindra Hospital, where he was declared brought dead by the doctors. His body has been shifted to the hospital mortuary.
Police have ramped up security around the mortuary where Mintoo's body is being kept.
Confirming the incident, Patiala range IG AS Rai said: “We have received information from the jail authorities that
Harminder Singh Mintoo died of cardiac arrest. Elaborate security arrangements have been made around the hospital to prevent any untoward incident and all movement around the mortuary of hospital has been restricted.”
Minto was among the six other inmates of the Nabha Maximum Security Jail, who had escaped in November 2016. He was arrested within the 24 hours of the incident by the Delhi Police.
Mintoo was arrested in November 2014, by the Punjab Police from the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi on his return from Thailand. At that time, he was facing charges in over 10 terrorism-related cases in and around Punjab.
Mintoo had recently been named as an accused in targeted killing cases that took place in Punjab over the past two years.
As per the police files, Mintoo had the backing of Pakistani spy ISI which had been providing him with all logistics to carry out terror activities in Punjab.
Investigations into the
Nabha jailbreak incident had also established that the four gangsters including slain Vicky Gounder, Neeta Deol, Gurpreet Sekhon and Aman Dhotian had included him and another militant Baba Kashmir Singh in their plans so that they could use their links in Pakistan-based terrorist groups to carry out their activities in Punjab.
