Four cars, eight minutes and 12 men were all it took to bust Nabha’s maximum security jail in Punjab’s Patiala district. The prison remains “maximum security” only on paper. The reality is that the prison is in shambles and in a state of gross administrative neglect. There are no modern security features – while the old plans to install state of the art frequency jammers, high-precision X-ray machines, explosive detectors, the employing of sniffer dog squads and perimeter patrolling and access control all remain, as of now, on the wish list.
Let us recall the 27 November sequence of events that led to the daring jailbreak by hardened Khalistani terrorists. Around 8.50 am, four cars entered the Nabha high security prison complex located on the Nabha Channo road; there were 12 occupants. Some remained in the vehicles, while others – a few in police uniform – reached the smaller gate located near the outer “deori” gate of the jail.
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Sequence of Events
Around 8.56 am, they entered the “deori” (corridor between the inner and outer main gates), overpowered a few jail staff and fired 35 shots (according to the police; others claim the number of rounds fired was close to 100). They proceeded to “free” the Khalistani convicts – including Harminder Singh Mintoo and Kashmir Singh of Khalistan Liberation Force and some dreaded gangsters such as Vicky Gounder, Gurpreet Sekhon, Amandeep Dhotian and Kuldeep aka Neeta Deol, who were already present in the “deori”.
They exited at 9.04 am and escaped.
The sequence of events clearly indicates an “inside job”. Palwinder Singh Pinda, a gangster, appears to have played a major role in this daring jailbreak. Arrested in 2013 for murdering a policeman, Palwinder managed to escape from police custody in March while undergoing “medical check-up” in a local hospital. Soon after escaping from Nabha jail, Pinda was arrested yesterday in Shamli, western UP. Mintoo was arrested today from a railway station in Delhi.
The other jailbirds continue to be on the run.
Liberating the Gangsters
Pinda’s interrogation clearly indicates that the jailbirds’ objective was to “liberate” the gangsters, not the militants, who apparently pressured the former to tag along with them.
Over the years, the condition of Punjab’s prisons has deteriorated; a few years ago, the jails were rechristened “sudhar ghar”, although they have now become clubhouses. Corruption is rampant, primarily on account of political meddling. Drug-running, which also has political patronage, is not a new phenomenon in the state. Both these factors contributed significantly to the Nabha jailbreak.
Unhindered Access into Prisons
About a month ago, I informed the Punjab and Haryana High Court about the almost open accessibility even to hardened criminals lodged across the state’s jails.
The modus operandi employed in the Nabha jail was simple: accomplices of convicts indulge in some petty crime or the other, attracting provisions of Sections 107 or 151 of the CrPC (posing imminent danger to public peace and tranquillity) and they’re thus sent to local prisons for a few days’ punishment. Once “inside”, they get themselves lodged in the same cells and busy themselves in consulting and brainstorming over the means they should employ to free their patrons. They also befriend the prison guards.
Palwinder employed guile and persuasiveness to befriend other jail inmates and guards. Sources claim that a Nabha prison officer and Palwinder chalked out the plan and other finer details of the escape over cell phone. The plan included “getting” the Khalistanis and the gangsters to the “deori” where they would be met by their liberators.
Some of my sources revealed that it was a “paid job” and the aim was to “safely” organise the escape of the gangsters. A thorough investigation may reveal the presence of a “temporary inmate” in the cell occupied by Vicky Gonder and his associates.
Significance of Sunday
That the “operation” took place on Sunday is significant. It is a day when prisoners are not sent over to the courts for “peshi”. Besides, it is on Sundays that inter-prison transfers of inmates takes place. This reshuffling, primarily, is on account of two reasons. The first – and legitimate – reason is the legal requirement for prisoners to attend courts and jails located in other districts.
The second is political interference and patronage that some of the “high end” prisoners, both convicts and undertrials, enjoy. Many politicians continue using inmates for their own ends, including shady deals and intimidation. In the quid pro quo, these politicians ensure the “happiness and satisfaction” of their “sought after inmates”. They have the inmates transferred from one prison to another, especially when the “need” to “utilise” them arises.
The Liberators’ Ruse
Some of the Nabha prison guards posted at the outer gate revealed to my sources that the “liberators” told them that they had brought along a few inmates as part of a routine inter-jail transfer. The guards’ suspicions were not aroused as some of the “liberators” were in police uniform while others were in plainclothes. What followed – the overpowering of the guards, the random firing and then the escape – was a crying shame.
What reinforces the suspicion that a conspiracy was hatched is that only those who escaped were at the “deori”.
No Fresh Recruitment
It must be mentioned that there has been no fresh recruitment of young prison guards for decades. Most of the old-timers who continue in service have developed vested interests – a fact that has contributed to the general decay. In its wisdom, the Akali Dal government of Parkash Singh Badal has been deploying retired ex-servicemen on prison gate duty.
To top it all, none of the recommendations of several prison security review committees has ever been implemented by the Punjab government. While there are unlimited donations from “sangat darshan” that go into the Akalis’ coffers, there is no money to fund an overhaul of Punjab’s decrepit prison system.
(The writer is a former director-general (intelligence), Punjab Police. He can be reached @shashikantips54)
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