The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has filed a charge-sheet against 11 accused persons with Khalistan terror links, including a British national in connection with the murder case of Punjab unit RSS vice-president Brigadier Jagdish Gagneja (retired).
According to the reports, the NIA spokesperson on Saturday said that the agency filed the charge-sheet in the Special NIA Court in Mohali on Friday. The probe agency said that during the investigation, it was found that the killing of Gagneja was part of a trans-national conspiracy hatched by the senior leadership of the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF).
The main accused is identified as Hardeep Singh alias Shera alias Pahalwaan. The others accused are Ramandeep Singh alias Canadian alias Bagga, Dharminder Singh alias Guguni, Anil Kumar alias Kala, Jagtar Singh Johal alias Jaggi alias Johar, Amaninder Singh alias Mindu, Manpreet Singh alias Mani and Ravipal Singh alias Bhunda have been arrested.
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The NIA has charged all the five accused with murder, conspiracy and under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Arms Act.
In October this year, the NIA court had supplied a copy of the charge-sheet in RSS leader Ravinder Gosain murder case after framing charges against the five accused, who were all accused in Gagneja murder case.
According to the charge-sheet, Gagneja’s murder was part of a trans-national conspiracy hatched by senior KLF leadership under targeted killings. He was shot dead by two motorcycle-borne assailants in the Red Cross Market area in Jalandhar, Punjab. He was immediately shifted next day to DMC Hospital in Ludhiana but died on September 22 due to critical injuries.
Reportedly, the killing of RSS leader was one of the firsts in a series of assassinations carried out by the trans-national Khalistan terror group. Eight acts of such targeted killings were executed as part of this conspiracy between January 2016 and October 2017 in Punjab. All the persons targeted belonged to the right-wing organisations.
In its charge-sheet, the NIA said the objective of the conspiracy was to destabilise the law and order situation in Punjab and to revive the Khalistani terrorism in the state. The Punjab government had transferred the cases to NIA after the killing had trans-national links.
The NIA investigations had revealed that funds were supplied from Italy, Australia and the UK to the perpetrators of the killings. These funds were used by the accused to purchase weapons to execute the murders as well as other logistics.
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“As part of the conspiracy, large amounts of funds were supplied from Italy, Australia and the UK to the perpetrators of the killings -Hardeep Singh and Ramandeep Singh,” said the official stating these funds were used by them to purchase weapons for executing the killings as well as logistics.
The NIA official also said that another UK national, Jagtar Singh Johal, who has been arrested in the case was involved in the funding of the conspiracy. The man behind day-to-day coordination of the conspiracy was Pakistan-based Harmeet Singh aka PhD.
