Punjab: Nabha jailbreak accused to be tried on day-to-day basis

PATIALA: A Patiala court on Thursday ordered that the trial of the 29 accused in the sensational Nabha jailbreak of 2016 be conducted on a day-to-day basis and also issued directions of the DGP prisons to shift all the accused to the two jails rather than six to rule out disruptions during video conferencing.

The court of additional district and sessions judge DP Singla - where the accused were produced from six different jails through video conferencing - fixed the next date of hearing on April 24 following which the trial will be held on a day-to-day basis. The court also directed the prosecution to provide the defence counsels of the accused with ballistic reports issued by the central forensic science laboratory, Chandigarh, and the copies of the challans that have been filed against the accused persons. The hearing in the case is to be held through video conferencing.

The police had registered an FIR number 142 at the Nabha Kotwali police station after the six inmates of the Nabha Maximum Security Jail - including the chief of Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) Harminder Singh Mintoo, militant Baba Kashmir Singh and four gangsters, Vicky Gounder, Neeta Deol, Gurpreet Sekhon and Aman Dhotian - had been freed on the morning of November 27, 2016.

In the ensuing investigations, the cops had arrested 30 persons including Mintoo, who had later died of a heart attack in custody. Vicky Gounder and key conspirator Prem Lahoria, who had remained elusive, were gunned down during a police encounter in a village on Punjab Haryana Border in January, last year. Another conspirator Ramanjit Singh Romi, who had provided funds and weapons for the jailbreak while operating from Hong Kong, was arrested by the Hong Kong Police in connection with two armed robberies there and is at present waiting to be extradited to India to face the charges. Baba Kashmir Singh is still eluding the arrest.

The police had booked the accused under sections 307, 392, 223, 224, 120B, 148, 149, 201, 419, 170, 171, 353, 186, 212, 216, 489 of the IPC and sections 11, 13 16 17 18 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.