"Baitha hai, sir, baitha hai" continues.....

Nine years after their arrest, on 21st January, 2004, Jagtar Singh Tara, Jagtar Singh Hawara and Paramjit Singh Beora, all undertrials in the assassination case, escaped from the Burail Model Jail. They dug a 94-foot long tunnel with a weightlifting rod. The tunnel went beneath three walled security rings. It was their third attempt to escape from the jail; the earlier attempts being in 1997 and 2002. Forty bags of excavated earth and debris were found hidden behind the cell’s cupboards.

Taps installed in the cell were kept running to drown the sound of digging. Complicity of the prison staff was suspected leading to the arrest of the Jail Superintendent and six other staffers including the Deputy and Assistant Superintendents. The audacious escape had brought to naught the good work done in arresting and prosecuting the dreaded terrorists; or so it seemed. Within two years Hawara and Bheora were apprehended but Tara remained elusive. On conclusion of the trial in the assassination case, Balwant Singh Rajoana was sentenced to death while others, except one accused, were given life imprisonment.On Jan 6, 2015, as I sat watching the TV, the news of Jagtar Singh Tara’s arrest in an eastern province of Thailand, after more than ten years of his audacious escape from prison, flashed on the ticker.

Full-blown stories began to appear soon as more details came in. On the following day newspapers were replete with front page reports on Tara’s capture. When news on him last came in, he had not only been extradited to India but sentenced to life imprisonment.

To be continued....