Bid to kill Dera Salabatpura manager foiled, 7 arrested

Bid to kill Dera Salabatpura manager foiled, 7 arrested
Rajay Deep
Tribune News Service

Bathinda, August 6
With the arrest of seven radical Sikhs, Bathinda police foiled a ‘well-planned’ bid to add fuel to the Dera-Sikh row. Reliable sources informed that the accused had planned to kill the manager of Dera Salabatpura, the state headquarters of the Dera Sacha Sauda sect. Meanwhile, they had chalked out a plan to open fire at a bus of Dera followers, which plies from Bhagta to Salabatpura.
The accused have been named as Gurlal Singh of Bhai Rupa, Gurpreet Singh of Bhagta Bhai Ka, Manjeet Singh of Bhagta Bhaika, Jagsir Singh of Tungwali, Satnam Singh of Gurudwara Bhai Dyalaji of Dialpura, Kulveer Singh of Maur and Bhola Singh of Phul. The accused are said to be in the age group of 30-40 years.
Sources informed that among the seven arrested there was one more who could not be arrested. It has also come to notice that all the accused were baptised Sikhs and some of them had close relationships with separatists.
It has been informed that they had practiced to ensure the operation gets executed in a fool-proof way. They had formed parties to make the operation successful.
As per their plan, one of the accused Manjeet Singh, who was a watchman in village Bhagta Bhai Ka, was assigned the duty to inform about the departure time of the bus, which carries Dera followers to Salabatpura. Further, there were two parties for opening fire at the commuters in the bus.
On July 19, Manjeet had informed about the movement of the bus and four of the accused on two motorcycles left for the mission but midway, one of the motorcycles stopped due to fuel problem, so they missed the target.
Meanwhile, they had planned to kill Dera manager Zora Singh but they had never seen him. They knew only about his timing and about his identity, they were told that he wore the symbolic locket of the Dera around his neck. During police interrogation, they accepted that once they were ready to kill him but as they were not able to identify him, the operation failed.
It was by chance that when police was searching for anti-Dera activists to ensure the peaceful bhog ceremony of a Dera follower, Lily Kumar of Mansa, that they were nabbed with weapons.
Police recovered three 12 bore rifles, one 12 bore pistol and one .315 bore rifle along with around 32 cartridges from their possession.
Confirming the facts, SSP Bathinda Ashish Chaudhary said, “The accused are in police remand as we are hopeful of getting more facts through their statements, which would help in solving many other cases.”