‘Murder of RSS leader part of Khalistani plot’

PATIALA: British national Jagtar Singh Johal, alias Jaggi, was actively involved in planning the targeted killing of RSS leader Ravinder Gosain after he met Khalistan Liberation Force chief Harminder Singh Mintoo in France in 2013, according to the charge sheet filed in the court of special judge Anshul Berry in Mohali on Friday.

Johal, according to the National Investigation Agency, was a part of the group that had planned the whole conspiracy and remained closely associated with the planning of the series of murders in Punjab in 2016 and 2017. Johal had given Mintoo £3,000 to execute Gosian’s killing, the NIA claimed. The NIA filed a 1,000-page charge sheet against 11 men in the targeted killing of the RSS leader, who was gunned down outside his house in Ludhiana in October 2017.

The agency, however, has sought discharge of British resident Taljit Singh, alias Jimmy in the Gosain murder case due to lack of evidence against him in the case. The agency moved a separate application that four other men — Harmeet Singh alias PhD, who is an ISI-backed pro-Khalistan activist operating from Lahore in Pakistan; Gursharanbir Singh, a British national based in Coventry, UK, involved in the killing of Rulda Singh, Rashtriya Sikh Sangat, Punjab, president in July 2009; Gurjinder Singh Shastri, a resident of Brescia, Italy; and Gurjant Singh, another pro-Khalistan terrorist who is now residing in Australia — should be declared proclaimed offenders in the case.

The NIA has pressed charges under Section 120 B (criminal conspiracy) against Jagtar Singh Johal and has charged Hardeep Singh Shera, Ramandeep Singh Bagga, Pahar Singh, Dharminder Singh Gugni, Anil Kala, Parvez, Malook, Amaninder Singh, Ravipal Singh and Manpreet Singh along with Johal under Sections 302, 34, 379 and 416 of the IPC, Sections 16, 17, 18, 18A, 18B, 20, 21 and 23 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and Sections 25 and 27 of the Arms Act.

The Union government is yet to grant sanction to the NIA to prosecute the accused as they will be tried under the sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The NIA would be filing more charge sheets against the accused in the other targeted killings that took place in Punjab during 2016 and 2017.

The NIA told the court that it would put up 172 witnesses during the trial and sought protection for 25 of them, claiming their lives were at the risk. Most of the witnesses listed by the NIA are police officials who had initially investigated the targeted killings, besides, bankers and staffers of forex companies through which money was transferred from foreign countries to the accounts of the local contacts have also been put on the list of witnesses.