NIA arrests Khalistani terrorist at Delhi airport upon his deportation from Cyprus

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday arrested absconding Khalistani terrorist Gurjeet Singh Nijjar at the Delhi airport on his deportation from Cyprus, where he was hiding. He has been arrested for allegedly hatching a criminal conspiracy to revive Sikh militancy in India for a separate state of Khalistan.

A resident of the Ajnala town in Amritsar, Nijjar left for Cyprus on October 19, 2017, a release issued by the NIA stated, adding that his transit custody shall be obtained and he will be taken to Mumbai for further investigation.

The NIA had registered a case on January 10 last year against Nijjar and another accused Harpal Singh under Section 3 &25 of the Arms Act, 1959; Sections 37 & 135 of the Maharashtra Police Act, 1951 and Section 20 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.

Further investigations by the NIA revealed that Nijjar, Singh and a third accused Moin Khan had orchestrated a criminal conspiracy to revive Sikh militancy for the ultimate objective of forming a separate state of Khalistan.

The trio through social media platforms used to post images and videos of the 1984 Operation Blue Star and Jagtar Singh Hawara - a convict in the assassination of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh.

“Pro-Khalistani posts related to a proscribed outfit named Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) were also put up to motivate like-minded Sikh youths and others to join the Khalistani movement,” the NIA release added. The agency had earlier filed a chargesheet against the three of them in a special NIA court on May 23, 2019.

This arrest comes almost a week after the NIA had sentenced and convicted a Tamil Nadu-based engineer Mohamed Naser Packeer for seven years of rigorous imprisonment in an Islamic State (ISIS) conspiracy case. Naser, who is a certified ethical hacker from Chennai, was working as a Web developer and graphic designer in Dubai in 2014.