NIA’s 1000 page chargesheet in the murder of RSS leader Ravinder Gosain shows that the conspiracy had links in several countries including Pakistan, UK, Australia, France, Italy and the UAE. He was shot dead in Ludhiana on October 17 last year near his house. There already are reports of Pakistan’s ISI training youth and Hafiz Saeed courting Khalistanis during processions in Pakistan.
The chargesheet says that the 15 persons accused “used to get their execution plans from Pakistan and several other countries over various social networking sites”. The NIA further adds that the transnational conspiracy was planned by Khalistan Liberation Force and eight incidents were executed as part of it from January 2016 and October 2017 in Punjab. All the targets belonged to specific communities and organizations. The objective of the conspiracy was to destabilize law and order and resurrect the terrorism in the state. The accused got entire planning and training on escaping CCTV cameras and execution of the crime from their handlers via Skype and Signal, a messaging app similar to Whatsapp.
The agency has mentioned a list of 172 witnesses including 28 ‘protected’ whose identity will not be revealed to anyone. This is the first time the NIA has used the term “protected witnesses”. Name of one accused who had died in Patiala jail on April 18 has been removed and an application for discharge of Taljeet Singh alias Jimmy has also been move as no substantial evidence has been found against him.
The witnesses include bankers, forex officials through which money was routed from foreign countries into the accounts of local contacts. It has been mentioned that large amounts of funds for the purchase of weapons and logistics had been moved from countries such as Italy, Australia and the UK to the killers. The evidence has been collected from oral, documentary, material, electronic sources and from several countries.
Earlier Home Minister Rajnath Singh had taken up the issue with Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh. The Home ministry ordered the case be handed over from Punjab police to NIA following which the agency registered the case. We had also reported about Pakistan’s ISI training youth and Hafiz Saeed courting Khalistanis during processions in Pakistan.
