New Delhi [India] May 11 : The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Sunday arrested a key Khalistani operative Kashmir Singh Galwaddi associated with foreign-based Babbar Khalsa terrorist Harwinder Singh Sandhu alias Rinda and one of the hardened criminals who had escaped during the Nabha jail break in 2016.
The breakthrough came when NIA nabbed Galwaddi of Punjab's Ludhiana from Motihari in Bihar in coordination with police in connection with a Khalistani terror conspiracy case.
As per the NIA, Galwaddi had been actively associated with designated Khalistani terrorists including Rinda since breaking out of Nabha jail.
An important node of the Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) and Rinda's terror gang in Nepal, NIA said, Galwaddi was a proclaimed offender in the NIA case, his role relating to involvement in conspiracy, providing shelter, logistics support and terror funds to aides of the Khalistani terrorists. "These aides had escaped to Nepal after carrying out various terror activities in India, including the RPG attack at the Punjab Police Intelligence Headquarters."
NIA had registered the terror conspiracy case suo moto in August 2022 to probe the terrorist activities of chiefs and members of proscribed terrorist organisations such as BKI, Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) and International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF), among others.
"Investigations had exposed a terror-criminal nexus, suggesting that these terror groups, along with organised criminal gangs were engaged in smuggling terrorist hardware, such as arms, ammunition explosive, IEDs etc from across the border to carry out terror activities in various parts of the country," said the anti-terror agency in a statement.
NIA special court had declared Galwaddi a proclaimed offender in the 2022 terror conspiracy case and had also issued non-bailable arrest warrants against him over the past couple of years. A cash reward of Rs 10 lakh was also announced by NIA for information leading to his arrest.
NIA had in July 2023 chargesheeted nine accused, including Sandhu and Landa, in the terror case, followed by two supplementary chargesheets against six others. In August 2024, the anti-terror agency had successfully secured the extradition of Landa's brother, Tarsem Singh, from the UAE and filed a third supplementary chargesheet against him in December.