NEW DELHI: Delhi police arrested an army major and his two associates over their alleged indolent in the Pathankot airbase attack.
The major was detained from his house in south west Delhi’s Delhi Cantonment area, while the other two are his alleged associates, an official involved in their detention said.
Delhi Police have questioned three men, including an Army officer, in connection with the attack on the Pathankot airbase. They have been questioned for over two days, sources said.
Investigators in the Delhi Police’s special cell alleged the officer was in touch with former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh’s assassin Jagtar Singh Hawara and frequently met him in Tihar jail. Hawara is in judicial custody. Beant Singh was killed by a suicide bomber in Chandigarh on August 31, 1995, for which Hawara was convicted.
Officials said they suspected that the officer may have been in touch with members of the banned Khalistani militant organisation Babbar Khalsa International (BKI). Two of the officer’s associates who are also being questioned do not belong to the Army, sources added. Senior police officers, however, declined to comment on the detention. Sources said the detained officer met Hawara in Tihar jail more than once. The officials of the special cell are also trying to establish the detained officer’s alleged links with two BKI militants arrested by the Special Cell and crime branch in 2012. The two were picked up from Punjab’s Ropar and Delhi, soon after 5 kg of RDX was recovered in an Indica parked outside the Ambala Cantonment station.
