Life imprisonment till death for Punjab CM’s killer

Chandigarh, March 17 (IANS) A local court on Saturday sentenced, to life imprisonment till death, Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) terrorist Jagtar Singh Tara, who was held guilty a day earlier for involvement in the assassination of then Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh in 1995.

Beant Singh and 17 others were killed when "human bomb" Dilawar Singh blew himself up at the heavily-guarded Punjab secretariat complex here on August 31, 1995.

A special court was held in the high security Burail Jail to pronounce his sentence.

Three BKI terrorists — Tara, Jagtar Singh Hawara, Paramjit Singh Bhaura — and their accomplice Devi Singh, a murder convict living with them in the same prison barrack, had made a sensational escape by digging a 104-feet-long tunnel in the high-security Burail jail here on the intervening night of Jan 21-22, 2004.

Hawara and Bhaura were re-arrested by security agencies later but Tara remained elusive and was re-arrested from Thailand after 11 years of jailbreak in January 2015.