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CRIME: NRI CONTRACT KILLINGS
The Long Distance Murders
As NRIs hire criminals and former terrorists to settle scores back home,
blood feuds reach a new level
By Ramesh Vinayak
For Pritam Singh,
a British national, Pragpur-an NRI-rich village located on the outskirts
of Jalandhar city-had long been a second home. But every time he flew
down to his native place, what greeted him was not the warmth of hearth
and home, but hostility over a long-running blood feud with his brother
Baldev Singh over their ancestral property. The property in question included
a 12-acre farm and a huge farm house. Over the years, as the price of
the disputed land increased-estimated at last count to be Rs 13 crore-so
did the stakes and the enmity.
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| PRITAM SINGH (left) was murdered
in a property dispute. Under suspicion are Avtar (right) and Pritam's
nephew Harbinder (bottom). |
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Upon arrival from Britain recently, the first
thing the septuagenarian did was seek security cover from the police,
citing a threat to his life during his stay in Pragpur. On the morning
of February 17, the police in Jalandhar received sanction from their Chandigarh
headquarters on Pritam's request. Ironically, around the same time instead
of security guards, two scooter-borne youths landed at the farmhouse and
shot dead its lone occupant-Pritam Singh.
The needle of suspicion pointed to Baldev Singh
who, despite being an accused in a previous murder case, managed to hop
on to a plane to Canada hours before the killing. The police then zeroed
in on his son Harbinder Singh, a Canadian national, who had arrived in
India two weeks earlier. A look-out notice was flashed to the country's
international airports and a cocksure Harbinder who checked in at Delhi's
Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport on the night of February 18
to catch his return flight was detained by immigration. The suspect's
interrogation revealed that his accomplice in the crime was Avtar Singh,
a former militant of the Bhindranwale Tigers' Force of Khalistan. Avtar's
cut from the deal-Rs 1 lakh and a promise that his son would be adopted
and taken to Canada.
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OTHER
KILLINGS
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On
January 17 Jasbir Singh of Hoshiarpur district was murdered by a
wanted terrorist. The plan was hatched by UK resident Avtar Singh
who had an old enmity with Jasbir.
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| In
July 2000, Ranjit Singh of Nawanshahar district was killed by Anil
Kumar, a professional criminal. Kumar was hired through Jasminder
Singh, a former militant deported from England. |
The Pragpur incident is the latest in a string
of NRI contract killings in Punjab. In the past eight months, there have
been at least half a dozen instances where expatriates have hired criminals
to settle scores back home. That, police officials believe, could well
be the "tip of the iceberg" in a state where murders over land
disputes and personal enmity are common. Last year the state witnessed
831 murders, a twofold increase since peace returned to the state in the
early 1990s. Says Suresh Arora, deputy inspector general of police (Jalandhar
range): "The NRI-sponsored killings are an emerging trend with serious
portents."
Serious because Punjab has hitherto been alien
to "supari" killings. But the phenomenon, according to police
officials, apparently took root during the decade of terrorism. Those
days the foreign-based pro-Khalistan outfits discreetly carried out contract
killings and protection rackets for NRIs through their affiliate militant
gangs in Punjab. But such crimes by expatriates went unnoticed as every
killing then was passed off as a terrorist act.
However, it was only recently that police investigation,
more focused on peace-time crime now, led to the trail of NRI-sponsored
contract killings. In the past five years, the state has seen a sharp
rise in NRI-related crimes ranging from human smuggling, hawala and drugs
to matrimonial frauds.
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| JOGINDER (below) was hired to kill Sukhwinder
and Jassi (above) on Jassi's mother's orders as she had married against
her family's wishes. Sukhwinder lived to tell the story. |
What lends an ominous note to such crimes is
the hiring of former militants and even police officials by NRIs. Though
terrorism is a thing of the past, there are still 5,000-odd ex-militants
who were once fringe elements in terrorist gangs. Most of them are unemployed
which makes them willing hired guns for NRIs who in turn can offer enormous
amounts of money.
The genesis of the NRI contract killings often
lies in land disputes and personal enmities. As grabbing NRI properties
is a thriving racket in Punjab, a large number of expatriates are finding
themselves caught up in never-ending litigation, in most cases with their
own relatives. Last year alone the NRI Sabha, a government-aided organisation,
received as many as 4,500 complaints from NRIs whose land had been encroached
upon. And their number, according to Sabha officials, is swelling despite
a recent amendment in the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949
to help NRIs recover illegally occupied property.
Fed up with the tedious Indian judicial system,
contract killings offer a short-cut to NRIs. Adding to their exasperation
is the clout of land grabbers, who are in cahoots with politicians and
police. "Such crimes could be the result of sheer frustration,"
says K.K. Sharma, executive director, NRI Sabha. Perhaps Sharma has a
point. Harbinder Singh, the prime accused in the Pragpur killing, has
no remorse for his act. "Murder was the only option," says a
deadpan Harbinder, accusing the police of siding with his uncle in the
land dispute.
Even professional criminals are being hired.
This angle was revealed with the arrest of Parvez Khan, a notorious criminal
operating from Nepal. Khan was allegedly hired by Jarnail Singh and Jaswinder
Singh-both brothers based in the UK-to murder the family members of their
third brother in Moge village in Hoshiarpur. The motive-disputed property.
Wanted in two dozen cases by the Uttar Pradesh Police and carrying a Rs
50,000 reward, Khan was to be paid Rs 10 lakh for the crime but his gang
was neutralised in May last year before it could execute the plan. Two
months earlier, one of the brothers had come from Britain to help Parvez
conduct a recce.
More than the criminals, it's the Punjab Police
that has been notorious for making the most of NRI-related crimes by illegally
brokering property disputes and travel agency frauds and fleecing cash-rich
expatriates. That a section of police officials are in collusion with
shady NRIs is a fact that even the police brass doesn't deny.
Such a nexus was exposed last year in the sensational
Jassi murder case in which a police inspector, Joginder Singh, was charged
as the prime mover in the contract killing of a Canadian girl at the behest
of her Vancouver-based family. Joginder has allegedly been in league with
senior officials. Once infamous for resorting to extrajudicial methods
to put down terrorism, a section of the police is still being perceived
by some expatriates as a "killing machine" that's for hire.
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