‘Baitha hai, sir, baitha hai!’(‘‘‘He is sitting there, Sir, he is there!’’’)( The Netting of Punjab CM’s assassin) continues....

As we strolled together to the car park, he disclosed that he had an input on the whereabouts of Jagtar Singh Tara, one of the killers of Sardar Beant Singh, the then Chief Minister of Punjab. The CM had been assassinated on August 31st the same year, less than a couple of weeks earlier. The two people accompanying him were his informers, who were absolutely sure of the veracity of their tip-off. As per the information, the terrorist was likely to be found either at his rented apartment in the semi-urbanized village of Arjun Nagar, near Safdarjung Enclave in South Delhi or at a Gurudwara in Adhchini Village, again in South Delhi. The Inspector and his informers had decided that they would themselves go in advance to his hideouts, confirm his presence and let us know. However, they cautioned me that Tara could be armed with an AK 56 rifle and definitely had a cyanide pill on him. Further, the operation to nab Tara had to be conducted urgently, positively by the next day, before he disappeared.

A brief chat with them was enough to convince me that indeed the information was reliable and needed to be acted upon post haste. But before getting into action, I wanted to know why hadn’t they or the Inspector gone to the Special Cell, the counter-terrorism wing of the Delhi Police or the Chandigarh Police. Their answer was simple:’’’We don’t trust them. We would rather let the information die its natural death than share it with them.’’’ They had shared the information with the Inspector on the condition that it would be passed on to an Agency which would handle it with finesse safeguarding their interests. They had apprehensions that if they approached the local police or any officer not of their confidence, they themselves could come to grief. Since they knew the Inspector well, who knew me personally, he had brought them to me.


To be continued.....