 |
|
Tunnel dug with electrical gadgets Chandigarh, January 27 Forensic experts and engineers who carried out an inspection of the tunnel at Burail Jail here yesterday have conveyed this in their initial reports to the Chandigarh Administration. Well-placed sources confirmed that experts will arrive at a final conclusion and submit a formal written report after reports of the sample tests are
reviewed by Thursday. The three — Jagtar Singh Hawara, Jagtar Singh Tara and Paramjit Singh Bheora, who are accused of killing former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh, had escaped from jail through this tunnel on January 22. The police and jail staff have launched a search for the gadget which may have been used in the tunnelling. The entire jail, including the factory where the tools are kept, was searched for the machine today and yesterday. So far the tool has not been found. In this connection some people have been questioned. The tunnel could not have been dug by non-electrical hand tools as was being speculated earlier. Three separate teams of the Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory, The Punjab Engineering College and the Engineering wing of the Chandigarh Administration took samples of the mud in the tunnel and also physically inspected it. An Engineer told The Tribune that various such machines with
adjustable drilling speeds were available in the market. The samples taken by the team will tell as to what kind of earth cutter had been used. The area is adjoining a choe (seasonal rivulet) and the mud is more like clay. Drilling through this would require a special machine meant for clay. It may be re-collected that one of the warders of the jail had gone on record saying he used to hear scratching type sounds just a day prior to the escape. Also it was unlikely that the three took away the machine with them as this would have meant excess baggage. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Map helped accused to dig tunnel A team of experts, which surveyed the tunnel today accessed this fact, said sources. A 50-year-old Central Forensic Science Laboratory
(CFSL) scientist today crossed the tunnel in three minutes flat. The tunnel journey of the scientist indicated Hawara and others would have easily gone through the tunnel. Sources also added that from inside, the tunnel had a pentagonal shape (hut shape). This had been done to reduce the possibilities of its caving in. Chandigarh, January 27 The tunnel is dug as per the designs provided on the newspaper, sources told The Tribune. The newspaper with drawings was recovered today by a search party sent in the jail. The map was an accidental discovery to the team which was scouring the newspapers lying in the barrack number seven occupied by Hawara and others. The discovery of map indicates that the conspiracy of the escape had strong external support also about which the police is still clueless. The seizure of the pen-drawn map has now added significance to a rope found earlier with knots tied after each foot of the rope. Experts now feel the knots were used as a measurement instrument to dig the tunnel. The expert team also found a bulb pinned with the tunnel wall and wrapped in a polythene. The team, however, could not trace any wire used for supplying electricity. The newspaper was recovered from the barrack mixed in a bunch of newspapers. The shape of the map matched with that of the tunnel requiring high engineering skills. The CFSL team which inspected the tunnel today assessed that at least four truckload of loose earth was removed from the tunnel, said the sources. The team also went to the agricultural fields of the jail to take samples of soil to ascertain if the loose earth removed from the tunnel had been transported to the fields. The team of experts comprising UT Chief Engineer V.K. Bharadwaj, CFSL Deputy Director Ram Krishanan, four others of the same organisation, Superintendent Engineer (Electrical) Pramhans, Superintendent Engineer (Civil) Mr Krishanjit Singh, Executive Engineers R. R. Rekhi, Anup Chauhan, the Civil Engineering Head of the Department of Punjab Engineering College Dr. Ravindran and Professor Umesh Sharma continued its search in the jail today also. Meanwhile, the Chandigarh Police has sent a questionnaire to experts to find out how much time the digging of the tunnel might have taken, how much loose earth might have been generated, how it could have been disposed of, what tools might have been used and whether there was another tunnel dug up before the existing one. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Escape from
Burail: red corner alert sounded Chandigarh, January 27 “There are strong possibilities of the three dreaded terrorists still being in the country preparing to go abroad,” the sources told The Tribune. The sources said the fugitive terrorists might try to procure fake identity from Nepal through gangs operating in Gorakhpur. Their possible escape route to Nepal from where they might fly has also been brought under the scanner. The sources said a team of Indian sleuths had been posted at the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu. Asked why the issue of a red corner alert had taken such a long time, the source said it had been done in appropriate time without specifying when it was done. He, however, gave a feeling it had been done on the same day and the team in Nepal had been made active on the same day when Hawara and others fled from the Burail jail here on January 22. The terrorists would certainly try to contact gangs involved in creating fake identity to go abroad, the sources said. The police is also looking into the aspect if they had already procured such fake documents. They said the terrorists were aware that escape to Pakistan or Western countries could be risky in the wake of the U.N. resolution against Terrorism post September 11 attack on the USA, adding they might sneak into an yet unknown country. Conceding that the Babbar Khalsa International headed by Wadhawa Singh Babbar skills had scored a “moral boosting victory,” it would now try to show its presence through a strike to send a signal to its sympathisers that it was alive. The strike may not be major but with one of its top operational man Hawara out of jail, it had capacity to do so. The sources said Hawara knew where the unused explosives of the militancy period were still lying in Punjab and they might use them. The police was trying to neutralise a possible strike by Babbar Khalsa which made an effort to revive terrorism in the 1990s when terrorism started weakening in Punjab. The sources said the Babbar Khalsa has sympathisers in Nepal where Hawara and others would try to contact them.
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | National Capital | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
