Punjab Police to get terrorist Jagtar Tara's custody after a month

Punjab Police will get former Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) terrorist Jagtar Singh Tara's custody in a month's time, a top police official said Wednesday.

Tara was arrested by Thailand police from a house near the resort town of Pattiyya Monday following a tip from Punjab Police. He was living there under the assumed name of Gurmeet Singh.

He is one of the terrorists convicted in the sensational assassination of then chief minister Beant Singh by a human bomb at the heavily-guarded Punjab secretariat complex here Aug 31, 1995.

"As per our information, he will be extradited after one month. We will get his custody," Punjab Director General of Police (DGP) Sumedh Singh Saini told the media.

A court in Thailand capital Bangkok Tuesday ordered his extradition.

The DGP said all paper work for the extradition and custody of Tara have been completed with Thai authorities.

Fugitive Tara had shaved off his beard and cut his hair. Thai authorities said he was living illegally in the country for over four months.

Three BKI terrorists - Tara, Jagtar Singh Hawara, Paramjit Singh Bheora - 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 Bheora were re-arrested but Tara remained elusive.