2016 Nabha jailbreak fugitive Kashmir Singh arrested by NIA in Bihar

NEW DELHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Sunday arrested a key Khalistani operative associated with foreign-based Babbar Khalsa International terrorist Harwinder Singh Sandhu @Rinda, and who was among the prisoners who had escaped in the Nabha jail break of 2016.NIA nabbed Kashmir Singh Galwaddi of Ludhiana, Punjab, from Motihari, Bihar in coordination with the Bihar police, in connection with a Khalistani terror conspiracy case.Since the jailbreak, Kashmir Singh was actively associated with designated Khalistani terrorists including Rinda.Kashmir Singh was declared a proclaimed offender by an NIA court in a 2022 Khalistani terror conspiracy case. A cash reward of Rs 10 lakh was announced by NIA for information leading to his arrest.An important node of the Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) and Rinda’s terror gang in Nepal, Kashmir was accused of conspiring and providing shelter, logistics support and terror funds to aides of the Khalistani terrorists. These aides had escaped to Nepal after carrying our various terror activities in India, including the RPG attack at the Punjab Police Intelligence Headquarters.Investigations into the terror conspiracy case had exposed a terror-criminal nexus, suggesting that Khalistani terror like BKI, Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) and International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF), 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.NIA has so far chargesheeted 15 accused in the case. In August 2024, the anti-terror agency had successfully secured the extradition of Landa’s brother Tarsem Singh from UAE and filed a third supplementary chargesheet against him in December.